


Recipe for Consequences

by RoleplayFanfics



Series: Recipe for Circumstances [6]
Category: Recipe for Consequences
Genre: Angst, Auror Harry Potter, Comfort, Different epilogue, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter Friendship, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Epilogue What Epilogue, F/F, F/M, Gay Remus Lupin, Good Draco Malfoy, Good Severus Snape, HP Alternity, HP: EWE, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry Potter is very salty, Harry is a Good Friend, Humor, M/M, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Muggle Culture, Not Canon Compliant, Not Epilogue Compliant, Only canon character deaths, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Harry Potter, Plot changes, Post War, Post-Canon, Post-War, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Reevaluation, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Teasing, part of a series, what epilogue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-01-24 05:07:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 61,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21332752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoleplayFanfics/pseuds/RoleplayFanfics
Summary: “...I know I’ve been… I made mistakes, I know I’ve been cruel to you for as long as we’ve known each other, I know I’ve said bad things about your friends, I know I’ve not been a, uh… nice person at all. Least of all to you: but I came here… To beg you to speak favorably for me at the trial. If anyone can save me from Azkaban, it’s you. I know I haven’t done things that would probably make you want me to be locked away forever, but I would never survive in there…! My life will be miserable enough as I was openly endorsed by that… that… monster! Potter, you’re the only one who can give me even a chance at, at... life at all!”---The war is over and the Wizarding World is finally at peace. However, war is not simple, and getting life together afterward is even harder.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Remus Lupin/Severus Snape
Series: Recipe for Circumstances [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1437727
Comments: 18
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Gosh I really thought I'd be done with this by now. - Nathan 
> 
> Teddy convinced Nathan to write a post all the books story featuring Nathan wrting Harry Potter and Teddy writing Draco Malfoy. The story does follow the canon for Recipe for Circumstance, and will hopefully shed some light on questions left after the other stories, and a bit what we imagine our canon to continue in. 
> 
> This work can be read separately from the story, but keep in mind that the canon is slightly different. 
> 
> Saddle in and be prepared for a lot of salt on Harry's part. 
> 
> Series order for Recipe for Circumstance:  
Recipe for Sympathy (Marauders story)  
Recipe for Resentment (POV Severus of Recipe for Sympathy)  
Recipe for Reconciliation (Sequel)  
Recipe for Regrets (Epilogue/Sirius Black story)  
Recipe for Betrayal (Side Story)  
Recipe for Consequences

**Draco Malfoy: **

Draco Malfoy had always believed that he had been born for greatness; he was a wizard of pure blood, from an honorable and great family, he had ended up in the most esteemed Hogwarts house, and he his grades had been more than satisfactory. He was bound for an easy time in school, with excellent academic credentials, whereas upon graduating school he was sure to gain a high position within the ministry, and gain friends and admirers from his fellow Death Eaters. Then, to add further to how lucky he was to be born when he was, Voldemort had returned during his lifetime. He was one of the few young Death Eaters who had spoken with the Dark Lord himself, and he had been entrusted with a task of utmost importance and glory: killing Albus Dumbledore. 

Yet, pureblood didn’t mean anything to most wizards anymore, his grades were not good enough to be outstanding at all, despite being good, he didn’t have an easy time at school. Nobody admired him, nobody listened to him unless he mention his dad beforehand, and nobody really cared what he thought. Voldemort’s return had been horrible, most of his followers were less than thrilled to have him back, since the only truly loyal ones were locked up in Azkaban for their crimes. He had been chosen by the Dark Lord for a task he couldn’t possibly complete, to make a mockery out of his family and the family’s name. He had of course failed the task, and had been forced to go on the run, thus, he had no real education and couldn’t actually get a well paid, respected job, all he could do was hide at home, with all the crazy Death Eaters and the Dark Lord himself living there. 

Then came the war, the final battle, and the Dark Lord was defeated by Harry Potter, and suddenly, his side had completely lost. The war was over, anyone who had fought on the Dark Lord’s side was to be tried for their crimes and removed from the Wizarding World. A lot of people had very strong opinions against Draco Malfoy, as he had been witnessed being embraced and accepted by the Dark Lord in front of the entire school… there was no real doubt in anyone’s mind that the Malfoys were war criminals. 

Yet there were many criminals to prosecute, and unlike last time, the wizards and witches called for fair trials, demanding that everyone be tried fairly and justly. Many just wanted the criminals gone, but the ministry was already criticized so heavily for all their own crimes and inaction, that they were desperately trying to win back the trust of the public by keeping the trials fair and honest. So the ministry had to come up with some manner of way to keep those waiting for prosecution. There was far too many people to be able to keep them locked up, so only the most dangerous ones were put in arrest, while the rest were allowed to go free, under the condition that they were subdued under a certain tracking spell. The spell in question was called  _ Sequor Vos _ (follow you) and it took the shape of a white, vaguely luminescent ribbon around the affected one’s neck. The spell was not removable by anyone other than the caster, and it would signal to all those who encountered the one with the mark that the person was wanted by the ministry. The spell itself was but a tracking spell, that would let the caster locate the object of said spell on any map, so the person affected could never outrun the caster. 

Those given the ribbon were explicitly told to not leave the country, or they would be hunted down and automatically deemed guilty. The spell was kept a secret from people outside of the ministry, and even within the ministry from the divisions who would never have the need to use the spell and even then it was strictly forbidden from being used carelessly. If a caster died before removing the spell, the mark would last for forever, thus it was very important to the ministry to avoid branding people for life, if an accidental or not so accidental death was to happen. Everyone subjected to the spell also had the memory of the spell’s name removed, thus it was most commonly referred to as ‘The ministry’s collar curse.’ 

While his father and mother had not been allowed to leave their cells, Draco had been sent off with the collar curse on his neck, leaving him alone in a hostile world, where more than a few people were eager to get their hands on anything that resembled a Death Eater, and the ministry’s collar curse was an open invitation for violence. Draco had been living in fear for the last months, and that fear had culminated into a single, horrible, panic when his father had been tried and sentenced to Azkaban. Draco was desperate, frightened, and marked with a curse that would either get him hurt or rejected from everyone he knew, leading to him standing outside a door he never thought he would be standing outside of. 

Draco took a long and deep breath, pulled his scarf tighter around his neck as if to shield himself from the cold, before he lift his hand and pressed the doorbell to Harry Potter’s house, located in Godric’s Hollow. The lights were on inside the house, and Draco could hear footsteps approaching the door. He stepped back, and waited for the familiar face with the round glasses and the unruly black hair to peek out from inside the warm house. Upon looking at his face, Draco found himself at a loss for words for a few seconds, before he finally gathered enough courage to speak. “...May I come inside? I have to speak to you.” 

He wanted very much to be his usual, powerful self, who would simply demand to be let inside, and demand Potter to listen to him, but months of loneliness and fear had dulled his mind to concepts of pride. He would have liked to consider himself humble looking, but to the piecing green gaze that was Harry Potter’s eyes, he most likely appeared weak and frightened. Draco pulled his clothes closer around him, staring down at the rug on the porch which said ‘welcome in, unless you are a vampire.’ He felt like the rug was mocking him, so he glanced up at Potter again, while shifting nervously. It was starting to get rather cold, he could see his own breath in the air when he breathed. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Harry Potter had never gotten used to being alone; it was simply not something which seemed natural to him.    
  
At first, he had lived, albeit very mistreated, with a family who was still always there, and very loud at that; there had been no way to get away from their noises, neither from the scrub under the stairway, nor the room that became his in later years. Then of course, upon being sent to Hogwarts, privacy was lost in living in shared spaces, and constantly spending time around his two best friends, not that he minded, he wasn’t very good at being alone with his own thoughts. Further places he hadn’t been alone was during the times he was allowed to live with the Weasley family, the celebrations he had shared with them, time he had spent around Remus Lupin in later years, with Dumbledore himself, and time with the Phoenix Order. Even at the time of running away and staying in hiding, he had never been alone, as Ron and Hermione had been with him. Needless to say, the entirety of Harry’s life could almost be summarized with a buzz of sounds and impressions, people and their voices. It was because of the constant buzz of noise, that the complete silence of his parent's house was so very jarring to him. 

Harry had discovered that he didn’t very much appreciate being alone with his own thoughts.    
  
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, himself least of all, but then again he had never been very good at foreseeing consequences, if he had been, he imagined the past seven years of his life to have turned out differently. It was always in hindsight he realized matters, and it was very annoying to the young wizard. 

Even after his family’s home being restored, the house felt big, empty, and quite so eerie; it felt lonely; it felt a little maddening. Harry was absolutely positive he could hear the wind outside the windows. 

The war had ended, and the world had finally, finally, settled down into being normal, well, normal for a kid who found out he was a wizard, Harry supposed. His legacy in itself had ended, the prophecy which Voldemort had so believed in, the threat of Voldemort himself, and now he wasn’t just the Boy Who Lived, but also the Man Who Killed The Dark Lord.    
  
Harry had always wondered why the wizarding world felt off and odd to him, but as he had grown older, as he had been taken in to the Ministry to become an Auror before he even finished school, as his words started affecting the entirety of the English Wizard community, he was starting to understand his problem with it.    
  
He was an absolute nobody, practically muggle-born as he had lived with a non-magic family all his life. If Voldemort’s idea of racial superiority was indeed wrong, then he was no better than anyone muggle-born, as he had never had the advantage of growing up with great wizards and witches around him. Unlike his fellow classmates, he had never heard a word about the magic that lived around it in everyday life, being completely new to everything which others already had taken for granted existed. He wasn’t the brightest student, he may have been very much uncannily lucky, but he was nowhere near as bright or dedicated as Hermione, or many other students for the matter, and he could barely practice magic alone, and learnt nothing more, as he had been thrown back into the muggle world every year he finished school, for a long time. He was already at a disadvantage, and then expected to have no time to catch up on his own, during his free time.    
  
In all honesty, he had been a terrible student. There were certain things he was very good at, such as catching things very quickly, and getting some simpler spells right, but he never learnt the more advanced things he was supposed to know; he was never one of the best. During his school years, despite the awe of everything magical he experienced, it still felt so far away and out of reach, when such huge loads of it was thrown on him repeatedly. It felt like opening a far too thick book with far too tiny text font, that happened to be a sequel to a book he had never read or heard about, expecting him to already know a lot of which the book brought up; of course he had been discouraged as a child, and no one had really helped him get past that mindset.    
  
Harry was the least qualified to everything he had accomplished, and while it had made him feel very special and great at the time, looking back, he only saw the accomplishments of other people who would never be mentioned in the story. He couldn’t count the number of times where Hermione had done all the work, all the preparation and all the problem solving, he had completely lost count of the times he had been saved by teachers, grown ups and even stranger magical creatures, and he couldn’t for the life of him remember a time when he hadn’t caused a lot of damage as well, just for being him, just for being The Boy Who Lived. He held no illusions that he wasn’t special, his circumstances were special, but who he was didn’t quite matter.

His existence had brought upon a war, had made Voldemort’s return possible, and had taken so much away from him, but even worse, from others who weren’t used to having nothing.    
  
Sometimes it was just the little things, things that just felt like enormous mistakes, once he gave them proper thought.   
  
He remembered his first year at Hogwarts, and how it felt like he was taking part in some fantastical fairy tale. He had found very quickly that said fairy tale was only fun until it got dangerous, and when it got dangerous, it was because they were foolish children not supposed to do what they had done. That year Harry had already become a legend of his own, because he, and his friends, had received points for defeating the Dark Lord, only, if one really thought about it, they hadn’t done anything but endangering themselves and others. Voldemort had not been strong enough to be a threat to any talented, more experienced, wizard, even a centaur had scared him off, lucky for Harry.    
  
In actuality, in his first year, by his own foolish, childish mistake and behaviour, he almost saw to Voldemort’s return.    
  
There was no way Professor Quirrell could have gotten the stone, Dumbledore had explained how it worked. All Harry ever accomplished by being there was ruining an almost impenetrable defense, by instead placing a defenseless child with the stone in his pocket in front of the Dark Lord. Then, he was saved by his mother’s spell again, but that was such a moment of sheer luck that it left a bitter taste in his mouth upon thinking about it, and how wrong things could have gone. After that, three small children were rewarded for said behaviour, and for endangering the entire world, and Harry couldn’t help but to think that it had become the catalyst for his recklessness in the upcoming years. It had made him feel like he was the most qualified, like it was his responsibility, like the scar on his head actually formed his destiny and he would succeed at everything on his own. He never did succeed at mostly anything on his own. 

He sort of felt tricked, he felt like a tool. He had always adored Albus Dumbledore, always trusted the man, but the more he thought back, the more he stayed up long at night, staring up at the ceiling of his empty house, he couldn’t help but to feel like a set piece. He knew that Dumbledore had used people as set pieces before, himself included, and was prepared to sacrifice, and with everything said and done, he couldn’t help but feel a nagging sensation that he had been blindly brought along a road, without ever getting to see what happened along it. 

It had left one of the current generation’s absolute worst, most reckless and least qualified wizards, namely himself, known as one of the time’s greatest wizards for defeating Voldemort. It had left him a legend that he didn’t deserve, one that was bothering him even more than the first legend, where he had only been glorified for something his parents had accomplished, where he never had any involvement.    
  
After all which had been lost, it was getting increasingly hard to be excited over his fame, to believe it had been worth it. Upon realizing that the wizarding world was still as foolish as it had always been, still as unstable and corrupt, as to that they would listen to him just for being who he was, no matter his qualifications, he had tried his best to use it to his advantage. His voice had carried a lot of weight in the request to give the Death Eaters and followers of Voldemort fair trials. It would still carry a lot of weight as he stepped into the corrupt, inefficient, courtroom in a few days as a witness of the trial of Draco Malfoy.    
  
It was a good distraction from all the darker thoughts that swirled about inside his head, after everything that had happened, to have tried to come to a conclusion about Draco Malfoy.    
  
Of course, he had already come to a conclusion, knowing well what he would say about the other.    
  
Speaking of the Devil.    
  
His doorbell rang, and while the world had gotten a lot safer, he was still too famous to dare take any risks, hence, he brought his wand with him. Still, the sight he found outside his door was a somewhat tousled up, clearly miserable, Draco Malfoy, looking at him with a strange pleading gaze that just-... didn’t suit the young man at all. It was kind of jarring to see Draco that way, even for someone he didn’t know that well personally.    
  
Harry himself wasn’t the most in order, he hadn’t shaved properly, and was dressed in nothing but a muggle t-shirt of plain color and pajama trousers, and immediately felt the cold air of late autumn bite at his skin.    
  
“Draco…? Uh, sure.”    
  
He was very bloody surprised to find the young man on his doorstep. It was really as simple as that in the muggle world, Court systems made a lot more sense, where witnesses weren’t allowed to discuss and meet with the prosecuted individual under just any circumstances before the trial. However, he sort of, well, had to let Draco in; it wasn’t purely about the fact that Draco somehow managed a look of a desperate and thrown away pup, but also because if Harry actually was going to speak the way he had planned at the trial, he might as well uphold his own words. It was actually rather preferable to him, as Draco had just earned a chance to prove himself.   
  
He moved out of the way, and closed the door behind the boy-turned-young-man who had probably always regarded him a bigger enemy than he had regarded Draco.    
  
“Uh, do you want tea, coffee, something warm? Let’s just talk in the kitchen.” 

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
Harry Potter addressed him by his first name, completely out of the blue. Draco was more than a little surprised to find himself spoken to on a first name basis, rather than by his surname. He couldn’t recall the other man ever using anything but ‘Malfoy’ when speaking to him, and the change in names seemed completely out of the blue to him. Still, he was invited inside, and took the chance to quickly enter, as to avoid the autumn evenings cold bites. 

The house was warm, and Draco quickly relaxed, only to blame himself for the carelessness, causing him to return to his tense position of a man who was completely out of his element. He didn’t thank Potter for letting him in, the very concept of saying such things as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ was very alien to the pureblood wizard, so much so that he neglected to show his host that simple courtesy. “Tea, yes, I don’t drink mu… I mean, I don’t drink non-ma… I, just tea is fine.” He stopped himself from calling coffee a muggle drink or a non-magic folk drink, which it very much was, but Draco didn’t think his view of the drink would be appreciated by Harry Potter. 

The pureblood removed his jacket, and hung it up, while keeping the scarf on, despite the warmth of the home. He wasn’t quite ready to reveal the collar curse to his host just yet. Soon, he found himself sitting by Harry Potter’s kitchen, in a bright, warm home, where the only black color came from his host’s hair. Draco had never been in any other kitchen than the one at home, where everything was a dark gray or black, from the floor to the furniture, except the furniture that was in dark mahogany. Compared to his home, Potter’s was so very… bright and open. It was almost jarring to the pureblood. 

Potter was making tea for him, slouching about in his unclean kitchen in pajamas and… whatever that shirt was supposed to be. Had this happened a few months ago, or maybe a year ago, he would have blamed the other for the unwashed dishes and the sloppy presentation of himself. But time changed a man, Draco would no longer blame the other, for he knew what it was like to be stressed and having nobody else who did things for him. Draco had grown up with a house elf who did all the work, and a mother who would not have her son caught dead doing housework. Thus, he was absolutely hopeless at all of those things, and he had a hard time managing the simplest clean up spells unless he gave said spell his full focus. Right now, Draco did not have full focus to give, so he had naturally failed to keep the house in check all on his own, for it was a very big house. Dishes piled up, clothes weren’t being washed, the food turned more and more simple, and dust gathered in the corners. It took all he had to remember to shave once in a while, as he had been taught to never, ever show himself in anything less than perfect, a philosophy which had caused Draco a myriad of problems and anxieties for most of his life. 

Harry Potter finished making a cup of tea for Draco, and he was given said tea in a mug,[ shaped like a chubby unicorn, with the words ‘I don’t believe in humans’ on.](http://userimages-akm.imvu.com/userdata/42/02/05/51/userpics/Snap_ySKA7jLVOZ660434713.jpg) The pureblood looked up at his host, unable to hide the utter confusion on his face. Potter was smiling at him, in a perfect impression of gleeful innocence that made Draco confused enough to not make any comments about the mug. 

They sat in silence for a short while, as Draco absently played with the teabag in his chubby unicorn mug, trying to gather his thoughts. He spotted  _ The Daily Prophet _ on the table, and picked it up, flipped the newspaper open and turned it around for Potter to see. The page showed a moving picture of his father, in the middle of a big courtroom, with the text ‘Lucius Malfoy sentenced to Azkaban for War Crimes’ underneath the picture. Draco took a deep breath, it was clear that he was very shaken. 

“My father… was judged guilty by the ministry… My mother will be trialed tomorrow, and… I will be judged in a few days… I… I know that my mother saved you, my mother was never involved with anything that He did, she really didn’t have much of a say in anything. I know you will be a key witness in the trial, and since she saved your life, she shouldn’t have any problems being excused for her crimes. That’s not… why I’m here…” He stopped, bit his lip, and stared down at the chubby unicorn mug in silence. “...I know I’ve been… I made mistakes, I know I’ve been cruel to you for as long as we’ve known each other, I know I’ve said bad things about your friends, I know I’ve not been a, uh… nice person at all. Least of all to you: but I came here… To beg you to speak favorably for me at the trial. If anyone can save me from Azkaban, it’s you. I know I haven’t done things that would probably make you want me to be locked away forever, but I would never survive in there…! My life will be miserable enough as I was openly endorsed by that… that… monster! Potter, you’re the only one who can give me even a chance at, at... life at all!”    
  
Draco had imagined himself to be able to present his request in a less… panicky, embarrassing way, but he had clearly failed. Worst of all, he was showing himself weak and desperate to somebody else, which was not allowed for a Malfoy, and he was doing it in front of Harry Potter, while begging to be saved. Yet he didn’t care. He was willing to go through all of this, if it gave him even the smallest chance of escaping from the fate of Azkaban. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, you simply had to make your own little golden moments; at least that was what Harry reasoned as he brought the horrendously ugly unicorn tea cup out of the cupboard, to later serve tea in to no other than Draco Malfoy.
> 
> He couldn’t possibly imagine that Draco wanted something pleasant, per say, and thus he had settled on the little amusement he could have.

**Harry Potter:**   
When most of your life had been miserable, no matter the glory people made it up to be, you had to look for those tiny golden moments, little rays of sunshine if you will. His life was filled with tiny golden moments, things that mattered, good memories, but in the great all, they were overwhelmed and overflowed with hardships he had experienced, making them all the harder to recall at times. 

Sometimes, you simply had to make your own little golden moments; at least that was what Harry reasoned as he brought the horrendously ugly unicorn tea cup out of the cupboard, to later serve tea in to no other than Draco Malfoy.   
  
He couldn’t possibly imagine that Draco wanted something pleasant, per say, and thus he had settled on the little amusement he could have.   
  
See, Draco was a rather fascinating person to Harry, because while it had always made sense in hindsight why the child had acted the way he did, it was so far from Harry’s perspective of reality that he had become some sort of dehumanized figure of vanity and lesser evil. It hadn’t been intentional, it was probably just how children reasoned about all those they didn’t understand. In many ways, Harry had always imagined Draco to somehow be evil, but not harmful, like a very tiny dog barking very loudly, before hiding behind a dog far bigger and stronger, whether that other dog would be his father or his friends. He was a little bit jealous of Draco, but not in a way anyone would imagine; as Harry had grown older, he had started being jealous of people who didn’t lose it all, and who weren’t destined for greatness and sacrifice; Draco had simply been the first in line to be jealous of, as he was the one who seemed the most eager to have all which had been forced upon The Boy Who Lived.   
  
He had probably wanted Draco to be evil, some things would have been a lot easier then, and he wouldn’t have felt any guilt for some of the things he had done to the Slytherin over the years. Still, being forced to grow up so very quickly, and reevaluating everything he had believed in, had led to Harry realizing that he and Draco probably had a lot in common. See, both were set pieces set out by adults who wanted them to complete certain objectives, take certain sides. Harry didn’t want to be who he was, not really, he hadn’t wanted to have to face some powerful dark evil he wasn’t prepared for, and he was quite certain Draco wouldn’t have been the, well, in lack of better words, little bitch, he had been all these years, if he had been given a choice, and taught differently.   
  
Harry did have some substantial, actual, proof of said theory. For one, Draco had failed at killing Dumbledore, and according to Harry’s knowledge hadn’t murdered anyone at all, or so the trial files he was looking through at the Ministry said. Secondly, he had protected Harry. The time they had been caught, when they had cast a spell to change his facial appearance, there would be no way Draco hadn’t known it was him, and yet he had refused to identify Harry, meaning that he had technically saved them. 

Lucius Malfoy was a name Harry was quite so tired of hearing, after the last weeks of his job at the Ministry. The man was undoubtedly a criminal, and beyond doubt, especially from what he had learnt from Narcissa, Draco had been dragged into everything by his father. Harry was so very tired of hearing Malfoy, in a sense of referring to the father, that he had opted to stop calling the son by the surname altogether.   
  
Draco was a child given a role to play, one that just happened to be the opposite of Harry’s side.   
  
After all these years of being a tool for other’s use, after still being a glorified tool, nowadays, as a face the Ministry had wanted to show to the world after all their failures to regain trust, he couldn’t possibly condemn someone who was also just a tool. Harry was a tool, he knew that he was; he lacked all qualifications to be an Auror, to a point where it affected his career and job, to a point he couldn’t hide it or get around it, and yet they did not even let him finish school to hire him as one. 

  
For a few moments after Draco begged him for his help, in a state which he could only imagine was what Draco had felt like on the inside for a long time, without showing it to the world, Harry just stared past them, out in the corridor. At last, he glanced at Draco; his eyes were probably reflecting exhaust more than anything, he couldn’t even find the energy to care for the other’s struggles visibly. Instead, there was some sort of gleam in the eyes that was probably very hard to define, one of curiosity and interest.   
  
See, he had already decided what to say on the trial, but he was still curious to know if Draco really was everything, or anything of what he had believed. Nowadays, he doubted everyone. His father and his godfather Sirius Black had both been horrendous bullies to a point where they had nearly well ruined an innocent child’s life. Albus Dumbledore might never have cared for people the way he acted, and might as well have used them all as set pieces. Narcissa Malfoy had saved his life. Severus Snape had apparently not been evil at all, and possibly the bravest person involved in the war, although that was a story for another time. He himself was nothing of all that he had believed himself to be, that people had managed to convince a child to think he was.   
  
“Is this really allowed? Can you just walk into my house a few days before the trial and talk to me like this? Aren’t you supposed to be locked up somewhere?” He started. He didn’t sound accusing in the least, merely confused, and he was really. The Wizard Court made absolutely no sense, had no organisation and was corrupt beyond anything Harry had words for. If he got started at faults with it, he probably would end up unable to listen to Draco’s answers.   
  
“See, if you really haven’t done anything wrong, legally speaking, and if you were really forced into all that you did, you should be perfectly safe, shouldn’t you?”   
  
He knew that he was being cruel, but he did want to find an answer, and yes, he was not above abusing the fact that he was in a position of power over the other, at least for the purpose of finding out more truth. 

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
Harry Potter’s eyes reflected something which Draco didn’t quite understand, it was some manner of emotion, but overall, the other man was giving him an empty look. That look made him feel as if his insides had frozen to ice, and he quickly avoided the other’s piercing green eyes. He wanted to say something more, wanted to object, but he found himself far too frightened to speak up before the other man. A few months of unwilling service to the most powerful of wizards tended to cause a person to hesitate to object. Potter wasn’t in any way like the Dark Lord, but the blonde man knew that his only chance lay with his old classmate. Without his help… If Potter refused to help him… Draco’s lower lip quivered as he thought of it. 

To his great horror and confusion, when Potter spoke up, he did not agree to his begging, but instead he began talking about something different. Was it a test? Draco was so caught off guard by suddenly being the one to be asked questions that he had to take a moment to gather himself. He reached out and placed his hands on both sides of the unicorn cup, staring down into the brown liquid that was his tea, as he could not gather the courage to look at his old classmate. 

The other man hadn’t sound accusing, so the blonde gathered that he was most likely valuing his options. Draco felt trapped under a much stronger force than him, and had he realized it, he would have been horrified to connect this feeling of weakness with the same feeling of powerlessness and entrapment he had felt when living under the rule of Voldemort. Questions. Harry Potter had asked questions, and thus, Draco opted to try and answer them, even if the questions themselves where… confusing. 

“I… why would I not be able to talk to you?” He dared glancing at the other man, before he looked down into his tea again, busying himself with pulling the bag out of the liquid, and adding a lot more honey then nessiciary into his unicorn cup. The honey had just been standing there for the taking, so Draco had assumed himself to be allowed to have some of it. “This is a very serious trial, held by the Ministry. Anything I do to you magically would be discovered by the trial, and you will be given a number of potion and anti-curse measurements to assure you protection at said trial. You’ve been at trials before, you know how seriously they take witness protection during these trials. Besides, I… am not allowed to carry a wand but in my own house, I couldn’t bespell you even if I wanted.” He quickly added: “which I don’t! I don’t want to cast any magic or alike on you.” 

Draco stirred his tea as he wondered if Potter was asking these things because of his childhood in a muggle household. Everybody knew that witnesses were furrowly examined before trials to assure that their minds hadn’t been affected by sinister magic. The next question was much more unpleasant to answer. The blonde licked his lips, trying to avoid the other’s eyes, and then slowly reached up to remove his scarf, showing the weakly glowing ribbon around his neck. “I suppose you don’t know about due to your birth, or due to lack of attention in class, but the ministry has a curse which they place upon people they do not want to lose. It’s not really a curse, but a tracking spell, which makes the caster able to locate us, I mean… the affected party, on any map. If the caster was to die, the mark cannot be removed, so the ministry doesn’t use the spell lightly. As I’m sure you can figure out on your own, this… mark makes me unable to run, and a lot of people will refuse to help anyone with the mark. Since it’s such a guarded secret, they make certain the name of the spell isn’t known, it’s simply called the ministry’s collar curse by most. I’m surprised you don’t know this, since you’re an Auror and all…” 

He suddenly realized that he might be acting high and mighty, and too much like he usually did with people when he had to explain things. Thus, he took a sip from his cup, avoiding his host’s brilliantly green eyes. “They… basically couldn’t fit us all in the holding cells, and thus sent some of the least pressing cases out with the collar curse on them to make sure we didn’t run away.”

Potter’s next comment was rather unwelcome, to Draco it sounded like the black haired man was just waving his words away, leaving the former Slytherin with a bitter taste of betrayal in his mouth. “I let Death Eaters into Hogwarts, I was forced to try and kill Albus Dumbledore, I had to fight on the Dark Lord’s side in the way, oh, and I was embraced and praised by the monster in front of the entire school!” He didn’t mean to raise his voice. Draco didn’t sound angry, but he sounded panicked. “I have not been treating my classmates in a very respectable way, making them more than likely to host hostility towards me… I’m… I’m scared, Potter… What if so many people speak up against me that they will lock me away despite my crimes not being that severe? What if I’m locked up on proxy of being related to my father? It doesn’t matter what I did or didn’t do, Voldemort himself praised me in front of so many people that they only way people will be able to see past that is if somebody equally influential would speak up for me. You’re… the only one who can do that. You’re the only one who can save me from his defilation…”   
  
He felt all the emotions leave him at once, and after he had thrown out all of those words and pleas, he felt deflated and woundrable. Thus, he hid in his own hands, shielding himself from the world as he tried to calm his breathing into something less erratic. He swallowed, taking deep, shaky breaths. “I’m… sorry. I didn’t mean to get so emotional… I really… By Merlin’s beard, I’ll admit it again: I’m scared… I have nowhere else to go. My friends are either dead or locked up. Nobody else can help me.” 

  
  


**Harry Potter: **

At first, Draco’s descriptions of things that he at least had remote knowledge of did seem rather off, and then it suddenly occurred to him; Draco was like most other wizards, never realizing that other forms of foul play existed in the world, besides magic. He couldn’t help but smile, because he really had no other option of expression to make right then, thinking that Draco couldn’t even think of extortion, bribery and other forms of ways to illegally make someone do someone else’s bidding. Wizards could be so bloody thick headed-... he wasn’t certain how to feel about it when Draco sat there, completely oblivious to how many holes there were in the two of them seeing one another like the current scenario.   
  
See, Harry was already not in a very good mood, and when he wasn’t, he had lately taken to smile to himself, because if he didn’t smile, or laugh, it would all end up feeling even more terrible. He did find the so called collar curse Draco was speaking of rather interesting, and like most strong and partly forbidden magic, absolutely horrifying. The most laughable part was that Draco was more than correct; he should very much know of the curse, and know of how the proceedings were supposed to go, in his role of an Auror. Aurors were supposed to be only the best, most highly trained, most powerful and absolutely most knowledgeable wizards and witches, with clear achievements to prove their status and accomplishments. Harry was nothing of that, Harry had none of those accomplishments; for Goodness sake he hadn’t even finished school! Still, an Auror he was, and it gave him certain privileges within the Ministry, at the very least. Perhaps he felt somewhat guilty, and wanted to make some sort of difference, the little he could, now that his voice was finally his own, and people weren’t telling him what to do. 

He hadn’t sat down yet, he was leaning towards the kitchen counter, watching his guest drink tea while avoiding eye-contact with him. Harry wasn’t sure whether he liked staring down at Draco in this manner, especially when the young man was so evidently forced into submission. Part of him would have thought he would have enjoyed seeing such a mighty vain person being bested, but-... Draco really wasn’t that, he had always been far too pathetic for that, and Harry did feel sorry for him, especially so since their fates hadn’t been all too different from one another.   
  
He didn’t look away, not even when Draco was begging him did he look away, even if he was a little uncomfortable at the sight. He was rather stuck in his own thoughts, but brought right out of them as Draco hid in his own hands, looking-... well nothing but miserable. Evidently, the other was frightened, and felt horrible about what he had done, it wasn’t too hard to figure out from the way Draco was speaking of the things. Well, at least Harry was fairly certain that was the case; it was enough to convince him that he had made the right choice.   
  
He smiled again, not because he liked seeing the other in pain like this, but because it was sad and he was-... well too broken to be emotional over anything more right then. Instead of speaking, he reached out and ruffled the other young man’s hair, while letting out a sigh.   
  
“Draco, listen, I don’t think it’s a fair trial in itself to let you talk to me and try to convince me of what I should think, but it doesn’t really matter, because I have already decided that I am not going to let them send you to Azkaban. You can calm down.” He sounded awfully confident for being just one witness, but he had experienced just how much weight his words actually held. He wasn’t confident that he could keep Draco out of jail with absolute certainty, but he was mostly certain he could, if he chose his words wisely. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The smile disappeared off Harry’s lips, as he realized that Draco, sobbing into his hands like he was, probably didn’t look all too different from himself, the first two or so nights he had spent in his new home, alone. He had been unable to sleep then, and had broken down into tears in the same chair as the one the other was sitting in.

**Draco Malfoy:**

Normally, to have his hair ruffled would be a great horror to the blonde man, not because he hated the way he looked when his hair was out of order, but because if he did not present himself flawlessly at all times, he could not be seen as being in control. The Malfoys were not actually vain, as much as they treasured power, and to be clean, well dressed, and with not even a single hair out of place was a sign that one was in power. Things like stubble, messy hair and dirty clothes, all signed, to the keen observer, a magic user who did not have themselves under control, and therefore lacked in power. That was not to say vanity wasn’t something that naturally occured within the family, but it had never been the sole goal behind the way the Malfoys presented themselves. 

Thus, he objected subtly to being touched, allowing a weak, displeased moan to leave his lips, but didn’t pull away or resist the touch. In truth, the time where Voldemort lived in his house, and they all had to obey every command, had left far too big scars for the young man to be able to vocally announce his distaste for having his hair ruffled. 

Still, what Harry Potter said next surprised him so greatly that he turned and stared at the other man, immediately forgetting the unprompted touch. Potter was not planning on sending him to Azkaban. Potter was not going to speak against him! He felt a rush of emotions, overwhelming feelings pulsed through entire being, and then… the floodgates broke. 

Draco had been alone for so long, feeling left against the world. For months, he had remained at home, only leaving when he had to get groceries, and every time he had, he had been terrified of being recognized and hurt. Witches and wizards had approached his home, and thrown spells at it, not necessarily with the intention to break the house, but they left things destroyed and covered in graffiti. It had taken Draco quite some time to dare looking at what they did, upon stepping outside, he found that a lot of the fence had been destroyed, and words had been sprawled all over the outside of the house. Words such as ‘criminal,’ ‘muggle-hater,’ ‘pureblood supremacist,’ and ‘Go back to Azkaban’ were repeated in many different types of handwriting. Worst of all were the words that simply said ‘murderers.’ The mere look of the word caused chills down his spine. 

The worst part was that most of those words were true. Draco couldn’t actually fault the people who had written them for the truth behind their words, and he knew more than well what type of terror that the Death Eaters had installed in people. He knew what type of people had chosen to serve Voldemort, he knew how unruly and dangerous they were, he knew first hand what they might do to cause harm. He had been face to face with Fenrir Greyback two more times than he ever wanted, and the werewolf had clearly derived pleasure from being frightening. He had lived under the same roof as the maniac who was Bellatrix Lestrange, and he had seen the Dark Lord’s abuse of people like his father and that of Peter Pettigrew. He had seen his old friends Crabbe and Goyle become something… else. They had been powered by a madness he couldn’t understand, driven wild with bloodthirst and ideas of power, so much so that they had turned the tables on him, and stopped listening to him. Draco had lived in fear of everyone he surrounded himself with, he wasn’t safe anywhere, thus, he could not blame the people who wanted all the Death Eaters locked away. People had died; that was a fact. People had been brutally killed, tortured, hurt… Draco hadn’t done any of that, but he had been part of the problem. He had wanted these things to happen, back when he was a child. Now he truly understood the meaning of fear, and he knew that those things he had wanted as a child had been completely misguided, and so disgustingly wrong. 

Draco had been taught that he was superior by right of birth, due to the blood in his veins. Because he was superior, nothing could hurt him, nothing would hurt him, danger was not something that applied to him. How wrong he had been. How wrong his parents had raised him to make him think such things. There were so many signs, so many things that spoke against the ideas of his superiority, but he had closed his eyes to them, ignored them, willfully as to not break his delicate world view. Draco knew better now, the truth was undeniable, and he had been wrong about most things in life. 

The blonde young man hid his face in his hands, trying to hide his tears from Harry Potter as he broke down crying. Back in his younger years, crying had been something alien to him, he never had anything to cry about, and he wasn’t allowed to in the first place. The past years had been full of tears, and especially so in the last month. The act of crying was so very natural now that he only put in minimum effort into hiding his face from Potter, Draco made no effort whatsoever to try and hide the fact that he was bawling. 

  
  


**Harry Potter: **

The smile disappeared off Harry’s lips, as he realized that Draco, sobbing into his hands like he was, probably didn’t look all too different from himself, the first two or so nights he had spent in his new home, alone. He had been unable to sleep then, and had broken down into tears in the same chair as the one the other was sitting in.    
  
He wondered if he was projecting some of his ideas onto Draco, or if he truly understood the other; he had been wrong about a whole lot of things in his life, after all. Perhaps it did matter to him, a little bit, that so much pressure had been put onto the other young man, and perhaps he wanted, for once, someone to understand him and what that burden felt like to experience. The little he had met Narcissa Black, and read of her pre-testimony, really did confirm that she believed her son to be better than all of what the Death Eaters were, that she blamed herself for letting the child be raised the way he had been, and that Draco never had a choice in any of what he was told to do. Promises of glory really didn’t matter much in practice, they were never worth the risks involved, that much Harry had learnt very well, by then. He-... sort of wanted to help the other, because he couldn’t really help himself.    
  
Being told that one was but a nobody does something to them. Subtly, slowly, action by action, the child learns that they cannot, and shouldn’t expect what others have, and somehow it becomes clear, false light illuminating a reality that looks like they didn’t have the right to all that which others did. Simply that they weren’t allowed it, and that it was normal that they weren’t. It had been very hard to break out of the mindset as he grew older, because no matter if he could logically reason that he deserved something, if he could logically want and desire them, his mind still didn’t expect him to be worthy of it, and it sometimes coped with said emotion by overplaying just how special he was for being who he was. 

McGonagall once told him that Dumbledore had wanted him to grow up away from all of the fame, because it would do him good. Perhaps, the man had feared him turning out anything like Draco, someone entitled, and therefore unfamiliar with struggle, but Harry had started getting other ideas. Harry never had a concept of self-value, and because he didn’t, he could very easily throw himself away for the sake of others, almost out of habit. Ultimately, it had almost come down to self-sacrifice, as he had been a horcrux, and to that point, he had lost so much, and others had sacrificed so much for him to be there. Dumbledore was one of the most intellectual people Harry had met in his life, but after a few late nights at the bar, spending time with his friends, he, Ron, and Hermione had just sort of started to think that a lot of things might have been different from what they had been told. It really was favorable for everyone if Harry was someone showered in false glory and prepared to sacrifice himself on a whim, something only a person with no concept of self-value really could do.    
  
Further, he was angry, furious even, in hindsight. All of these things had been kept away from him for eleven years! He would have wanted to know Remus Lupin far earlier in his life, he had wanted to get to know Sirius Black, even if that likely would have been very difficult. Bloody Hell, he would have wanted to get to know Severus Snape, get to know what his mother had been like, getting to know what her best friend was like. He would have wanted to live normally for a wizard, wanted to be economically allowed even an ounce of what other people had, even if he never had any desires to live like his cousin. People like the Weasleys didn’t treat him differently for his fame, there had been so many options for him beside the constant abuse in his aunt’s home. He could have grown up, experiencing and enjoying what he had, instead of having it dangled before his nose before it had to be sacrificed. 

Even when he had realized better, it was still nearly impossibly hard to get into the habit that he was supposed to care for himself, supposed to take care of himself and all that was hurting him. It felt better to do something for someone else, it was rooted into his bones at that point. It felt better to agree with Hermione about all the risks she had taken in his company over the years, all the work she had done for them, that nobody but the three of them seemed to want to remember and be grateful for; it was easier to tell her that she was treated unfairly, to focus on her suffering from his fame, rather than his own. It was easier to be there for Ron when he relived terrifying moments from the past few years, to assure the other that it was okay to be scared and hurt by it; it was a lot easier than hurting on his own.    
  
He was sort of glad that Draco had showed up, he had, kind of, actually, wanted to talk to the other, anyway.    
  
When it started to sound like Draco was actually calming down, sobbing a little more silently, Harry stepped forward and, well, hugged him. Not very forcefully, and besides, he was a lot taller than the other since he was standing up, but he could still put his arms lazily around the young man, and offer a place to be shielded from the world.   
  
See, it did make sense in his head. Harry himself had found that safe embraces really did wonders to him, when in pain or grief. Besides, he had always had a rather strange concept of touches, and had no real concept of privacy of his own body. It didn’t feel strange to hug Draco, someone he had considered a pest and annoyance, even an enemy, until recently. Harry had never really had the choice but to let other people touch him. His foster parents had grabbed him and forced him aboutt, but only ever touched him for the sake of moving him from one place to another, like some sort of irritating furniture piece that had gotten in the way. His cousin had touched him a lot, mostly poked and annoyed with all his might. Adults touched him a lot, grabbed his face, his hair, his cheeks, his shoulders, hugged him, and similarly, because he was the famous Harry Potter. A lot of adults put their hands on his shoulder all the time, in an attempt to show support, wordlessly. 

He had later learnt the real comfort of cuddles, hugs, and closeness to people he trusted, both platonically with Hermione, and romantically with Ginny; he probably wouldn’t have rejected Ron in the aspect of needing comfort physically, but suspected that his friend would have been weirded out or reacted negatively. There were hugs from adults that had meant something, by people he had gotten to know and trusted. Being touched by someone he trusted really was different, in ways he couldn’t even put into words, and only then had he learnt that not everyone liked being touched the way he had just sort of come to accept anyone to touch him. By no means did Harry expect himself to be considered a safe and comfortable person by Draco, but really, he was probably the best bet the other had, right then. 

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
Draco was not used to being touched. All his life, people had gone out of their way to avoid touching him. He had not been hugged by his parents, for that was not fitting of his family. People in school generally avoided him, and he was always shielded on both sides by Crabbe and Goyle, who would make sure that other people stayed away from him as much as possible. Both of which avoided touching him too, due to him being the one in power, therefore, he was too important to be stained by their clumsy hands. His actual first experiences with being touched came from when he began being sexualy active. Even then, the touches had been strange to him. Due to him only ever experiencing touches as something that happened upon being intimate with somebody else, it was extremely jarring to suddenly have Death Eaters around. The Death Eaters didn’t care about his personal space, if he was in the way, he would be moved, if they wanted to make a point off false support, they would touch his shoulders or back. To Draco, the intimate experience with being touched clashed horribly with the casual, disempowering way in which the Death Eaters treated him. It had been more than scarring to be embraced by the Dark Lord, in a way that forced him to experience a truth that spoke against intimacy, and for touching to be something meant to be disempowering and humiliating. 

Draco would have expected another embrace to feel the same, thus, he couldn’t help himself from flinching upon being touched by his host. Draco froze up completely after his initial reaction his mind racing in a circle, unable to break out of the strange clashes of emotion that came to him upon physical contact with another person. He stayed still in the other man’s arms, but then, slowly, he came to accept the embrace as warm, and surprisingly soothing. With Harry Potter, it was clear that his mind settled towards the embrace being a welcoming intimacy, rather than a disempowering one. 

In a very careful manner, Draco moved his hand up, lightly touching the other man’s arm, before allowing himself to lean into the embrace. They stayed like that for a while, the silence was filled with a few weak sobs coming from the blonde, but not much other than that. 

Then, Draco took a deep breath, and moved himself back, regretfully breaking the warm connection between their bodies, but accepting himself to have been calmed enough. He reached up for the ugly unicorn mug, and began drinking the almost cold tea, which was far too sweet from all the honey which the former Slytherin had put into it. His head felt like complete mush from having cried so hard, and from having found, well, comfort in being comforted. 

“...Thank you.” Draco mumbled, half into the chubby unicorn’s body, half to Harry Potter. Draco Malfoy never said ‘please’ or ‘thank you,’ thus, he was more than surprised when the words left his mouth, and even more surprised to find that the words hadn’t been hard to speak at all. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Harry seemed to have made the right call; it did make him feel rather satisfied with himself. 

Draco separated himself from Harry, and well, he couldn’t help but sort of like the mess that was currently the young man in the chair. It was, you know, kind of human in a different way to see him with ruffled up hair and eyes a little red and swollen from crying. It really was as simple as the fact that Draco looked a lot more human when he admitted that he had emotions, and didn’t act like a stuck up twat.    
  
As Harry’s general mood had become somewhere along the line of depressed with slight frustration and anger at the idiocy displayed around him, he tried very hard to make things feel light hearted and good for himself. It mostly consisted of seeing friends as often as possible, in between work hours.   
  
“You’re welcome,” he stated, with a shrug, making sure to not stare Draco down far too much.    
  
“So, uh, was that it? That’s all you wanted to talk about?” He paused for just a moment before continuing. 

  
“Do you want to stay? I know you’re probably going to object, which is your loss really, but I do have movies, muggle thing, you probably won’t understand, and we could just watch one if you want to?” He gestured towards the living room, realizing that he wasn’t even a little bit tired despite it being well past 9 PM. He would ask Draco how he had been, would ask him about things that had happened to the both of them, but he really couldn’t be arsed right there and then, he really couldn’t summon the energy to get back into everything painful again. That seemed very much like a problem for tomorrow. Besides, Draco looked pretty much as tired of everything as himself, if not worse.    



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here he was, Draco Malfoy, Death Eater, pureblood, supposed-to-be murder of Albus Dumbledore, standing in the livingroom of Harry Potter, with a chubby unicorn cup in his hands, and with eyes swollen from tears. How had he gotten here? How had he gotten to this point in life?

**Draco Malfoy:**   
He stopped drinking to look up at the other man, and couldn’t help but notice that despite the angle being rather unflattering, the other was still rather handsome, even when looked down upon from his chair. Draco had been mortified to realize that there were things he liked about Potter, even back in his school days. The black, fluffy hair, and the green eyes were pleasant enough features on their own, but the round face had grown into a more square shaped one, with more defined lines. Still, there was a softness around the chin, making him appear less hard altogether. The brows were dark, and with the glasses, they made the green of his eyes stand out even more. Yet all of those features that he found appealing on their own were highlighted by the messiness that now extended from the man’s hair to his face. The stubble was unpredictable and didn’t exactly lay in order, but it was so dark that it appeared thicker and more styled than it was. Perhaps it was all the features that Draco did not have, but Harry Potter did, that made the latter attractive to the former. Draco stopped looking, as to not be distracted by the man’s looks, instead returning to his chubby unicorn held tea.

“...I suppose I was expecting… uh it to take… longer to convince you to not speak against me…” He mumbled, his lips more or less pressed to the mug’s side. 

He was only given enough time to reply to the other man’s first question, before he was quickly surprised by another question. One that prompted direct eye contact with the man as to make sure that he hadn’t misheard him. He was about to object to the proposal, but the continued ramble of the other’s convinced him that he did not like Potter’s assumption that he would do… exactly what he had planned on doing. Failing to take anything else into consideration, Draco decided that he would not give his host the credit of having read his mind, thus opting to surprise himself with the answer. 

“I suppose I don’t mind staying. I’ve… heard of movies, actually.” He was not lying about that, he had heard some people mentioning it back in school, and despite it seeming more than unworthy of his time, he had never quite gotten over that muggles apparently had figured out how to combine sound with moving picture, with no use whatsoever from magic. He had been curious about it for more or less ten years, and the prospect of finally satisfying that curiosity was more than tempting. “Fine, fine, Potter. I shall watch one of those movies with you. I’m assuming you will let me borrow some sleeping clothes as well? I do not wish to go to bed in my dress shirt.” He almost demanded to not be given a T-shirt to sleep in, but he caught himself in possibly asking too much, thus he didn’t. “...And I would like another cup of tea, if you so don’t mind…” Draco raised the unicorn, as if in defeat. Why he felt weird asking for more tea, he hadn’t quite figured out yet. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**

“Great,” he exclaimed rather quickly, not all too loudly or enthusiastically, but certainly with some content.   
  
A lot of things piled together if one was to explain his enthusiasm: the mess of a state he was in, that he wasn’t used to being alone, that he wasn’t used to boundaries or having any of them; all in all, he’d be more than happy to go ahead and bother with Draco, if it meant not bothering with himself. Besides, he had for the longest of time wondered what it would be like to introduce a wizard to muggle concepts, one who wouldn’t actually already know them, like his friends did.   
  
“Uh, yeah… sure, I’ll find something, but you don’t get to change your mind.” He looked about. He took about two seconds until he remembered what he was going to do, and prepared more tea, in the same unicorn cup, of course.   
  
He showed Draco to the living room, and in all honesty, the rooms still felt a little unfamiliar to him, creepy even. Had he been a muggle, well, never known he was a wizard, he would have said something along the lines of not believing in ghosts, but that was sort of wasted on someone who lived alongside them in Hogwarts; at least the ghosts in Hogwarts had helped him come to terms with not being scared of ghosts, not the ways muggle society was starting to obsess with movies about them. However, it was a house where people had died, it was the house where his own parents had died, inside of it, and well-... maybe knowing that there was a world of fantastical, magical and dangerous things just messed with his head sometimes. He wasn’t paranoid, but he was a little creeped out with the ever nagging sensation that everything was possible, and that he couldn’t trust his own judgement anymore. He wasn’t even expecting ghosts, he would probably have wanted to meet them, had there been any lost wandering souls of his parents, but there was still a sense of unease, of something unknown, when he was alone in the large space of the home. He was probably just being a bit paranoid. Besides, he had wanted to care for his family home, he had just not expected it to be so bloody lonely to be completely alone in it; in hindsight, it felt like that should be obvious.   
  
Anyway, Harry went and got just a slightly oversized t-shirt for Draco, one with a v-neck and that was in a rather plain grey tone. He probably should be getting the other trousers too, something to sleep in, or well, he didn’t have to but expected it to be what someone like the other would expect and want, hence it was a lot more fun not to do it, since Draco never specified wanting any trousers. 

“You can borrow this for now; think fast,” he said, as he returned to the living room, simply throwing the piece of clothing on Draco, expecting the other to catch it. He did avoid the general direction of the coffee table and the unicorn cup of tea on it. 

There was a TV there, and a VHS player, and because there was, Harry had earlier headed to a muggle store to find movies, figuring that movies were a generally good distraction for him.   
  
The girl in the store had been a little above his own age and generally nice, very eager to suggest movies to him. He might have been hitting on her, ever so slightly; there was nothing wrong with having ideas of what could be, as long as he was prepared that she might not be up for that. Besides, he had found that he enjoyed his time in the muggle world, further and further avoiding the wizarding society when he wasn’t at work. Nobody knew of Harry Potter in the muggle world, if they ever would get to know, it would probably turn out as much of a myth as the legends of Merlin and similar, mere tales really. Speaking of which, there was an old VHS by the title of Merlin that he simply had to purchase, wanting to know how different the muggle idea of the man was, from what they had read in their history books at school.   
  
The girl had very strongly recommended a movie that he didn’t believe he’d want to watch, but then again, he had asked for her opinion, and enjoyed her enthusiastic rambles. Apparently, it was an absolute necessity for him to buy a movie by the name of The Princess Bride, despite a title that would turn most young men his age away. Thus, Harry had bought it, not knowing what he was in for, in the slightest. Among his other purchases had been the Back to the Future trilogy, a silly romantic comedy in a two for one deal by the name of Runaway Bride, as he figured why not, when the title rather matched that other bride-something movie. He had bought a whole load of classics, monster movies and movies by a man of the name Alfred Hitchcock; it was a very weird name, but then again, it didn’t seem weirder than the surnames of most wizards and witches out there. Lastly, there had been a whole box set of a TV show by the name of Doctor Who, and apparently it was supposed to be very good, and he just decided to go with that too. 

See, Filling up mostly empty shelves up helped his home to feel a little more personal, a little more his own, even if part of him felt like he was wasting money. It felt good to spend it, however, a cheap rush and distraction that he would make certain wouldn’t overtake him far too much.   
  
The Princess Bride had ended up becoming a movie he had watched at least a good five times, since the purchase, whenever he felt extraordinarily bad; the movie had an uncanny ability to shed away all negative thoughts, and make him feel good. It was exactly what he was planning on having Draco watch, perhaps it would even cheer the other up a bit. 

Harry started up the movie and placed himself comfortably in the couch.

  
  
**Draco Malfoy:**   
Here he was, Draco Malfoy, Death Eater, pureblood, supposed-to-be murder of Albus Dumbledore, standing in the livingroom of Harry Potter, with a chubby unicorn cup in his hands, and with eyes swollen from tears. How had he gotten here? How had he gotten to this point in life? Draco neglected to think of that further, and reached down to place his unicorn cup on the table, then allowed himself to sink into the sofa. The sofa felt strange, unfamiliar, and more than a little unused. 

As he tried to not think of the fact that the couch most likely felt unused because it was unused, Potter came back and before the blonde had time to properly realize what was going on, the other called ‘think fast,’ and Draco was hit in the face with a shirt. The shirt remained on his head, as Draco tried to decide if it was more humiliating to take the shirt off or let it remain on his head until Potter stopped pretending to not be laughing. 

“I thought you were a seeker, Draco.” He heard the other man’s voice, and opted to no longer remain hidden behind the fabric, thus he pulled it off, pretending very hard that he wasn’t aware of the general level of redness on his face. 

“Do I look like I’ve been able to play for the past three or so years?” He asked sharply, glaring at the other man. In a vain attempt to restore himself into something resembling proper, he reached up to readjust his hair. 

The former Slytherin stood up, and walked off towards where he had seen a bathroom when he entered, leaving Potter to deal with starting up the so called movie. As he changed out of his clothes, into the big T-shirt he had been given, he contemplated why it was called just ‘movie.’ What did it mean? Was it a joke having to do with the fact that the thing was moving pictures on a screen? He really didn’t know. 

… Where were the trousers? He looked around, and realized that he had simply pulled everything off and gotten dressed in the T-shirt without thinking. Draco looked around, as if he would find a pair of soft trousers lying around somewhere for his convenient usage. No, nothing of that sort. Draco threw a glance into the bathroom mirror, then he stopped to wash his face off, took a deep breath and left the bathroom with his clothes, with his underwear, but with no trousers. He could play this game as well, and he was absolutely, positively, not in any way bothered by showing his legs or underwear to Harry Potter. 

Draco put his clothes in a pile on an empty armchair. The shirt reached down a little further than to the hem of his underwear, and it was a little big in that comfortable way a night shirt is supposed to be. Draco was by no means hairless on his legs, but the blonde hair made it hard to tell what the hair situation on said legs was, so he had never really been bothered by it. Draco sat down next to Potter, acting as if he was ashamed of nothing, and made himself comfortable on the couch, looking at the… muggle thing. 

The movie started up, and Draco hated that he was surprised with the pictures and the sound working together. He very much hated that he even grabbed a hold of Potter’s arm as the muggle thing began showing the movie. For a while, it was a little hard to follow the actual plot of the thing, but then, it became very interesting. Draco had to try very hard to not let his face crack open in a smile, and he found himself constantly demanding answers from Potter over how they did this, and this, and that. 

The movie followed a grandfather telling a story to his child about how the Princess Buttercup was getting married to Prince Humperdink, instead of the man Westley (hatefully enough sounding a lot like Weasley) whom she actually loved. The princess was then kidnapped by a giant, a crazy man with a sword, and an almost sympathetic man who had been hired to start a war. The three men were hunted down by a pirate (what was a pirate again?) and the pirate (perhaps it was some manner of magical creature invented by muggles?) proved to be the princess’s long lost love Not-Weasley. Most of the movie seemed to center around the princess, as she was moved around a lot, but she was rescued by the end, saving by the Not-Weasley, the crazy man with the sword (who did in fact get to avenge his father, whom had been killed by a man with six fingers) and the giant. 

They all rode off into the sunlight, and Draco turned to Potter, whose shoulder had become Draco’s pillow somewhere around the part with the Fire Swamp, when the former had began getting used to the whole moving pictures and sound together. The movie ended with a kiss, and the former Slytherin was thus trying his best to not think of romantic scenarios with his newly claimed Potter-pillow. “...But those horses were at least real, right?” He demanded to know, sounding much more like himself after recovering somewhat from all the anxieties about being sent to Azkaban. 

**Harry Potter:** **  
**Harry couldn’t help but grin widely, perhaps even a little alike the borderline maniacal grin of his deceased Godfather, not that he knew anything about how Sirius Black used to grin back in his younger days, before Azkaban had all but turned his brain into scrambled eggs. 

The reason for his grin was that Draco returned, evidently not wearing any trousers, and acting as if it was the most natural thing in the world, despite Harry suspecting it being a rather embarrassing deal for the ex Pure-Blood fanatic, and Malfoy heir. He made a brief note that the other had rather appealing legs. 

Of course, having Draco watch a movie was probably one of the best decisions he had made in his life, as the reactions it drew out of the wizards were very amusing. It actually made Harry feel… more than he had expected to feel. Being constantly drained of emotions, and heaved down by depressing thoughts made it hard to feel enthusiastic about anything, but he found that he was very enthusiastic about how Draco would react to every little trick and plot-twist in the movie. Harry was lucky to having seen it before, as he had to talk over certain moments, and pause the movie repeatedly to explain how it was actually made, not that he was an expert on cinematic work. Still he even had to playback the video for a moment to not let Draco miss out on any of the good bits.   
  
After a while, the other had settled to lean against him and physical contact felt very good. It felt good in general to have the animosity they had shared towards one another somewhat calmed, even perhaps completely so; at least Harry couldn’t imagine having the energy to be upset with the other for anything that was in the past.   
  
Since Harry always had a slightly twisted reference of bodily contact, it didn’t mean far too much to him to have someone who evidently needed the contact lean on him like that. Still, like most teenagers, since he was still a teenager, he did give Draco’s possible reactions a bit of thought. It just seemed like it was a little impressive to have someone who probably wasn’t very used to being in a ‘weaker’ position against someone else, and showing himself in such ways, lean on him. Actually the whole ‘weaker,’ or as muggles would go as far with foolishness ‘female,’ positioning really didn’t matter, it didn’t make a person weaker than the other, or say much about their personality; if anything, it should be impressive that someone would let down their guard as such, it seemed braver, at least in Harry’s opinion. Well, it wasn’t exactly what he was considering either, it was that most teenagers sought out physical contact with one another for romantic or sexual purposes. He-... really didn’t know what to think of Draco in that aspect, because of course he had to, any teenager in their right mind and aware that people could be attracted to them would at least give it a thought. The other was fairly attractive, Harry had learnt that heteronormativity was but a far fetched muggle concept in the wizarding world, and with the whole pureblood regime falling apart, Draco might realize that he doesn’t have to marry a pureblood woman and further the blood line; not that Harry would put it beyond the other to try such a thing anyway, perhaps even out of habit.   
  
He would probably be a little ashamed to admit that he didn’t care so very much right then, he would even describe himself as very easy, sexually speaking. It wasn’t something he had yet had the chance to act very much on, but he wasn’t currently together with Ginny, even if they hadn’t quite figured out whether they were going; at least they were friends, right then, nothing dramatic was between them, and they could spend time around another. He just… couldn’t care. His mind hurt, memories chased him, he doubted everything and everyone, he felt immense guilt over so many things, and physical pleasure just seemed all the more appealing; the experiences he had been having sexually in the past, alas few, had completely emptied his mind and made him feel good, after all. Anyway, he was getting ahead of himself, when he could just appreciate that Draco dared seeking comfort in him.   
  
“Yes, the horses are real,” he commented, pausing for a moment before he continued, “how was the movie?” The grin spread over his face again.   
  
“I haven’t read the book it’s based on, but since Indigo Montoya is bleeding to death, Weastley is borderline paralyzed, Fezzik is too big for the horse and Buttercup isn’t particularly good at anything, I don’t expect them to survive for long until they’re hunted down, so it’s kind of funny that the movie might not have a happy ending. It just feels a little more clever, since you don’t know this but mostly all movies like these have happy endings, and it’s getting a little overused.” He glanced down at the other, who was still leaning on him, grin fading into a more neutral smile. Well, maybe he liked the more realistic ending too, because he had learnt to be very sceptical about happy endings, based on personal experience. 

Suddenly, something hit Harry and his smile faded. “Hey, Draco, how much do you know about the Felix Felicis potion?” He hadn’t had a chance to see Hermione for a few days, and he realised something the other day that he had really wanted to talk to someone more competent in magic about.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...Hold on. Draco’s head fell and he reread a sentence, then he slowly lowered the papers, and looked straight into Harry Potter’s eyes, a sort of distant, strange look on his own face. He opened his mouth, and then closed it, only to try again, with more determination this time. “Lupin and the Tonks woman had a child?"
> 
> Potter confirmed this by nodding, and Draco slowly opened his mouth again; “...Then… I… I’m related to that child."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the chapter that confirms what happened to Severus Snape and Remus Lupin, after our long stories. 
> 
> Remus's letter is written by Teddy, despite being in Harry's post, as he had been writing Lupin for the entire series.

**Draco Malfoy:**   
He attempted to summarize the movie in his head, to give a more detailed and interesting answer, but in the end, he smiled weakly, almost as if defeated, and replied with “It was the best movie I’ve ever seen.” That was to say, also the only movie he had ever seen. 

Potter quickly followed up by telling him about a horrifying ending to the book the movie was apparently based on, leaving Draco with an unsettling feeling in his stomach. Had he been more used to movies, and the troupes and similar which had been used to death, he would most likely have had a more agreeing reaction to the former Gryffindor’s statement, but as it was now, he couldn’t help but think that his host had quite the morbid taste, to think that death would make this story a better one. Draco avoided mentioning this to the other man. 

Luckily for him, the boy-who-lived suddenly switched topics, as if somebody had slapped him, causing an old memory to jump to his lips. “Felix Felicis?” He repeated the name to make sure he had heard the other correctly, while sitting up, thus removing their body contact from one another, and looked back at the other’s face with a confused frown on his face. “Yes, Felix Felicis causes the drinker to have a limited period of good luck, during which they are likely to succeed in all endeavours in which success is possible. The drinker have a strong perception of this effect, including a high level of confidence and, what has been described as ‘a sensation of infinite opportunity.’ This is accomplished not through direct application of force or granting the drinker any extraordinary powers, but by inspiring the drinker with a favourable pathway through the circumstances.” Draco stopped to take a deep breath, having rambled all he could remember from the potion textbook of advanced potion making. 

He looked at Harry Potter’s face and judged the other to have found his answer a little strange, thus he continued, with slightly red cheeks. “It’s a luck potion which will give luck where it is possible to succeed in a matter. I always thought the potion to be a bogus happy potion, one that just have the user a lot of confidence but since people don’t like to admit that they need extra confidence, it was just passed off by being called a luck potion. It’s not like luck is a real concept, being unlucky is just something people say to make themselves feel better when things are tough, right?” He shrugged, leaning back against the armrest of the couch, leaving the other man little to no secrets with what the blonde looked like without trousers. Draco had gotten comfortable enough to no longer feel like he had something he needed to shield from the other’s view. He wasn’t exactly thinking of improper things, he was simply… starting to relax. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Right, so Harry had changed the topic to something he had found very interesting, and was rather pleased to know that Draco knew of said potion, and at least and the supposed effects of it. Still, it was noteworthy that he could hopefully find time to make Draco watch yet another movie.    
  
“Yeah uh, I thought the same thing, kind of. Then I brewed an advanced potion in potion class, in our sixth year, and because I managed I won a small vial of Felix Felicis. To make a long story short, I used it to find the perfect timing to make someone confess the details about Voldemort’s horcruxes.”    


He had wanted to do other things too-... but he’d rather not dwell on ideas he wasn’t very proud of.    
  
“It felt almost like some strange form of clairvoyance, like a gut feeling that made me change every plan me and my friends had prepared, which conveniently made me find the man at the best given circumstances, that I would have no idea of, and made me say exactly what needed to be said to change the stubborn man’s mind. Maybe it felt like being possessed, or well, what I imagine that would feel like; it felt like someone else was moving my body about.” He was looking at Draco, in his eyes, because looking elsewhere would be sort of inappropriate, even if he was a bit tempted, but it was inappropriate for a serious discussion.    
  
“I did trick Ron that I used some in that game that he made such a big impact on that year; I guess you have a point in that luck is made up, and all that, since he just needed a confidence boost, but the potion itself is something different entirely. My friends used it in battle, making the Death Eater spells conveniently miss.”    
  
Harry was getting visibly antsy and uncomfortable with what he was thinking of, even if it didn’t show as any form of emotional reactions, no rather, he had ended up staring down at Draco’s legs instead of looking at him, evidently lost in thought, looking back on moments of his past, like he had so many times before.    
  
“I guess I just sort of wondered why it was never used before, when really capable potion brewers can make it. It makes spells miss, it makes you know exactly where to go and what to do. To me, that seems insanely powerful, and it just made me think that a lot of horrible things that happened really wouldn’t have had to happen, if people had just drank a few drops of that potion. My parents, my Godfathers, Snape, so many others might have been alive, since the whole world seems to work in favour of that potion. Maybe my parents could even have killed Voldemort, back then, it just seemed that if that was their objective, they’d definitely succeed with it, even if it wouldn’t last because of the horcruxes.” By then, despite looking at Draco, Harry was definitely not looking at anything at all, seeming sort of lost in thought.   
  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
Draco listened to the other man speak, while leaning himself on both the armrest and the back of the couch, allowing him to nezzle into the corner of said couch. He listened with a neutral look on his face, while trying to figure out what the reason for him being told these things were. 

Potter described how he had won the potion, then continued on to speak of what it was like using said potion. Draco had never read anything about what using the potion was like, and even despite him being a school dropout at this point, the former Slytherin found the subject rather interesting. So he kept on listening without interrupting, studying the dark haired man’s face as he spoke. Yet he couldn’t stop the sneer which spread over his lips as he heard the story about Weasley having been tricked by the use of the potion, thus doing well thanks to the placebo effect… Hoh, that was hilarious indeed. He tried very hard not to laugh. He managed for the most part, being able to keep it at the original sneer. 

Then… something changed in Harry Potter. He seemed antsy, uncomfortable, something… dark had come over him, and he looked altogether more depressed than before. The change wasn’t as sudden as the description might sound, but the former Slytherin definitely picked up on the change. 

“...While I don’t think your idea is entirely without fault, it would probably not be as easy as you make it sound. Yes, in theory, it probably sounds like a very easy solution, however, that potion is extremely poisonous if you drink too much, so it would not exactly work to be drinking it all the time to better your chances at things. Your, I mean, people couldn't have drank it in anticipation for the Dark Lord, since they would not have been able to tell when he would come, and would most likely have overdosed and killed themselves if that had been the case. As for taking it the second the Dark Lord or the Death Eaters broke down the door, that might have been a more plausible alternative, but I really do think you underestimate how hard that potion is to brew. It’s not just advanced, it’s really advanced. And the ingredients are very rare and expensive.” 

He stopped, just to make sure that Potter was still listening to him, and hadn’t disappeared away somewhere inside his own head. “A side effect of taking it, as I remember, is becoming too reckless as well. I’m not imagining you’d know what too reckless mean, Potter, but a normal person can’t usually survive the thing which you have been through. Luck can only take you so far, if you get hit by a spell, you will still suffer the effects of that spell. You cannot dodge spells forever, sooner or later, you will be hit.” 

Draco felt his heart sink, and he lowered his head to stare at his own feet, studying the big mole on his leg. He noticed that a long, black hair was growing out of it, and realized that in his depression, he had forgotten to pluck it. Oh well, it was just a natural thing the body did, it wasn’t anything to be ashamed about. 

“...I miss… Professor Snape as well.” He finally admitted. 

“He was killed because he was the owner of the Elder Wand. I should have been the one to kill Dumbledore, as was my mission… But he did it, because I couldn’t… If he hadn’t done that, I would have become the master of that Wand, and the Dark Lord would have killed me. I… Owe Snape so many things, I… it’s not like I saw him as a father figure or anything like that, but… I don’t know how to describe it, it was just always safe to have him around. People couldn’t actually bully Slytherins when he was there, and he’d make sure we weren’t treated unfairly when we did act up.” 

For somebody outside of the Slytherin house, it was hard to see, and for a young student within the house, it would be borderline impossible to notice, that being said, the older students in the house had all come to learn that they were expected to be bad. Nobody expected Slytherins to be nice, hard working students. It was implied that they cheated in everything, where generally unappealing, and had no desire but to be as cruel and vain as possible. As young students, that made most Slytherins think of themselves as victims, the world was already against them for being picked for the house with the most impressive rate of graduating, noticeable wizards and witches, of course people were jealous! Then their fellow classmates began avoiding them, leaving only companionship within their own house possible. The older students in their house had already accepted to be evil, thus having to prove themselves in any way possible, morally questionable or not, while smugly boasting about their achievements to try and tell themselves and others that they could get along fine without the companionship of students from another house. It created a toxic wheel, where the younger students came to accept their outsidership by looking at the older students, who had already forced themselves to no longer mind their label as evil. Selfishness and loyalty to Slytherin was ensured on the basis of locking them together and asking them to survive in a world which would look down upon them no matter what they did. 

Snape was the one thing working for Slytherin; he was with them, he was their ally in the teacher body. Snape didn’t let them get away with things, but he was pretty much the only teacher who would even give Slytherin students points for anything, as only Ravenclaws and a few other students from other houses could really get points for being academically impressive. Hufflepuffs got points for being good people and taking care of one another, and Gryffindors got points for… well, more or less nothing, unless they did good in the Quidditch matches, that had to be pretty much the only time they got points, right? Draco couldn’t remember ever receiving points for anything from a teacher who wasn’t Snape. 

“...I heard… I mean, as I understand it, Snape was on your side all along, and he was just… I don’t know, pretending to like Slytherin and all those things.” Draco’s throat felt thick as he tried to speak about it. He felt betrayed in a sense, the person he always thought was there for them, there for him, had just been helping him on the basis of not being revealed to be a spy? Had Snape cared about him or his fellow Slytherin at all? Was everything he did some kind of trick to make people who weren’t Death Eaters hate him? Draco didn’t want to believe that the man had just done all that he did for him, for the sake of keeping up appearances. “...Was he actually… your ally? I… can’t quite believe it.” 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
See, this was one of many reasons to why Harry was the least qualified to things involving magic. Even Draco, who reasonably probably had little to nothing to do with the potion knew more of Felix Felicis than himself, despite him having read up on it, and it was comforting to have the assistance of someone else who knew more than himself. In a sense, he had probably gotten used to Hermione to fill in the blanks for him, as they had done practically everything together during their school years, and thus he always had someone to rely on when the strange new world he experienced was too much for him to comprehend.    
  
He visibly relaxed again when he heard that it probably was impossible to use the potion for all that he had imagined could be possible. He made eye contact with Draco once more, smiling rather weakly at the other.   
  
It just felt-... off. The wizarding world felt wrong, and it felt like a world where magic was so wild, unruly and made practically everything possible, the only thing that killed people were their own foolishness. He could think of infinite numbers of trinkets in the store Fred and George had owned, that could make for surprisingly good warfare, rather than pranks. It was as if there was no balance whatsoever, and it was by sheer luck things happened, in the end.    
  
Not to mention the ancient protection charm his mother had put on him. All it required was sacrifice, which was in itself absolutely horrible and not at all as honorable as it was made up to be, but sacrificing oneself for someone they love, and doing it by choice, wasn’t something that should be unique to his mother in her facing off with Voldemort. Anyone could do it, really, loving and caring for someone deeply wasn’t unique to his mother. Yet, he was a bloody legend, he, the infant, who did absolutely nothing, and who wasn’t deserving of any of it. All he had served was becoming a horcrux, ensuring that Voldemort wasn’t truly gone. Sometimes he wondered if some sort of magical mass lobotomization had occured in the wizarding society, to make them not realize such obvious things, and made them act all wondrous and ridiculously impressed with things anyone could do. Adults out there in society, people beside the ones he knew personally, acted so very mindlessly impressed with his supposed achievements that they started feeling more like cloned set pieces than actual living people and individuals; when Harry was still a child, it had been hard to see them all as people, and not just ‘adults.’ He didn’t know, since he knew barely anything really, if the protection charm was commonly known or not, but did it matter really; there were, in fact, other famous and talented wizards and witches than Albus Dumbledore, and there should reasonably be more people aware of it. At the end of the day, people really shouldn’t be falling at his feet for something he didn’t have anything to do with. Maybe later, he would word his frustration to Draco, if only ever to see if the other agreed with him on that point or not.    
  
Not right then, however, as Draco started speaking of something else, something more personal.    
  
“I guess you were lucky to ever get to know him, I’m kind of jealous,” Harry admitted, after a few moments of consideration, in response to Draco’s relationship with the man. Harry was jealous, really. When thinking back, he had almost regretted not ending up in Slytherin, as it would probably have done the world good to see that they weren’t all evil, and to help ensure the students knowing that they would have had a choice other than be expected to become Death Eaters and support something as insane as Voldemort’s ideals. His chances of ever being on good terms with Professor Snape had probably been ruined with him entering Gryffindor, as the man had to put up pretenses, and in Slytherin he could at least have acted as if he was manipulating Harry; at least to Harry that seemed rather reasonable. Even if it would have been hard, maybe he could have made friends outside of Slytherin, since he was, in fact, Harry Potter, and still managed to end up in the mess he had.    
  
He had wanted to talk about Severus Snape with someone, because he had gotten to know a lot of truths he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Perhaps Draco was involved enough to know, as it had felt wrong to share the information with others, even with his best friends. “Yeah, he was on our side, let me just-... one moment.” Rather mysteriously, he left the couch and headed to his parents’ bedr-... to his bedroom, and rather promptly returned with a few papers that looked like handwritten letters, even from afar. There were four papers, stacked in order, with a line in the middle, showing that they had likely been folded in an envelope in the past.    
  
He handed Draco the several-pieces-of-paper-letter and sat down again, watching him expectantly. The letter read:    
  


_ Dearest Harry,  _

_ if you read this, I probably did not survive the final battle.  _

_ If you are somebody else reading this, I don’t know what to say other than this not being for your eyes.  _

_ I am taking a risk in writing these letters, but I am doing so to resolve myself of the final guilt which would otherwise have possessed me, make me unable to move on in peace. I cannot help but fear that someone else is reading this, and that I might put him in more danger by writing this confession, but Harry, you have the right to know the truth about Severus Snape, and I fear nobody but me could tell it to you.  _

_ I know that you have been mistreated by the man, and I know you hold antagonistic feelings towards him, much like Sirius did. However, your grievances with the man are actually well founded, and you have every right to be upset, whereas Sirius never had that right. What I am about to tell you will be hard to melt, and it won’t undo the damage Severus has caused to you and other students, but please try to listen to me.  _

_ Severus has sacrificed his life for the purpose of being a double agent, working for our side. He has been since the first war, and he has always known that he would die in this line of work. Severus believed that if he died hated by everyone, he would truly have done his job well. During our own time in school, thanks to the way he was treated by people, he was forced to take shelter with the Death Eaters, despite never believing in their ideas. I knew him back then, and he has many times expressed that he couldn’t even trick himself into believing in the superiority of blood even if he tried to.  _

_ After your third year, after I decided to leave Hogwarts, I went to him, and he confessed everything to me, by making me promise to never tell what I had learnt. He has worked hard to be the small minded, cruel, selfish monster which he was falsely accused of being back in our school days, as to make certain that everybody believes him to be a real Death Eater. He has been treating students bad as to make certain that the parents gets to know that Severus Snape is a vicious man still, who greatly resents everything and wishes that the Dark Lord had succeeded with his wish. He threw away his own life for the sake of becoming the Death Eater he was always accused of being. Yet everything he did, he did for the sake of becoming a spy for our side.  _

_ That does by no means make him innocent of the things he did; he still hurt people, children, and it breaks my heart to think that he will forever be remembered as a servant of the Dark Lord, which is why I am telling you of his struggles in this letter, so at least you can know that he was never truly like that. Severus may have been selfish at times, which is every human’s right to be, but he is so much more than that. He has done so much to change mine and other werewolves’ lives for the better. He was the one who developed the potion for lycanthropy, and the leading researcher when it comes to the subject of werewolves altogether. This is a person who was almost killed by a werewolf, and instead of reporting me or getting me kicked out of school, he stepped up and developed a potion that would save me and all of my kind from the insanity of the curse. You might think I am biased because of that, but I am a werewolf, and I can read a lot about a person based on the way they smell; Severus was never vicious, not truly. Although I cannot prove it to you by anything other than assuring you of me being absolutely certain on the subject, Severus was never, and would never be, a true Death Eater.  _

_ I hesitate to tell you this, as you are a child, but there is one other thing you should know. Me and Severus were involved with each other. I’ve been in love with him since back in school, but he has always rejected me, and I have always accepted that he did not want to be with me, until recently. I won’t go into details about what has changed, I don’t have time. I was very happy with him, and I would have wanted to spend the rest of my days together with him. However, our relationship complicated his work, and some Death Eaters were starting to believe that he was no longer as serious as he had been, as he was no longer the lonely, vicious, hateful man whom they expected him to be. To protect him, we had to avoid showing feelings for one another, and thus I moved on to my relationship with Tonks.  _

_ I… did not have feelings for her, and she knew this well. I was and still am uncomfortable with our relationship. I’ve always been honest about this, and she has claimed to feel nothing of the sort towards me, while thinking that I cannot smell her true emotions. I was horrified to learn that her patronus had changed into a werewolf, but I knew that I had to stay with her as to not compromise anything for Severus, this was is ultimately bigger than all of us. My lack of feelings towards her has been unfair, and I wish I could have loved her, but my heart wasn’t hers, and pretending otherwise would only have been more unfair. We were never married, only on paper, to make her happy, to protect Severus, and to make sure that there are no complications for our child, if we… both were to die.  _

_ I’m not imagining you would understand. At this point I can only hope that you aren’t disgusted by me for having a child with a woman I don’t love. To be honest, I didn’t want a child, and I felt tricked when I learnt that she was pregnant. I understand if you feel like the blame is on me for this, and I won’t try to change your mind, but I want you to know that I love my child with all my heart. I wish him to grow up loved, happy, and never doubting that he wasn’t a mistake. Since I am not there to tell him this, I beg that you tell him that his father loved him very much.  _

_ You already know that me and Tonks both wish for you to be his Godfather, and while this request has already been made, I want to tell you my reasoning behind asking it of you. You have never judged me for being a werewolf, you have not been scared of me, or bothered when the moon was rising. Yet you have also never adored me, or treated me like some manner of exotic object, like I feel Tonks is. I know that you have known the struggles of growing up without parents, and I know that your economy would not be damaged by having to care for a child. I believe that if anyone can give my child the love he deserves, without treating him bad for being the son of a werewolf, it would be you, Harry. Know that I will not hold it against you if you do not wish to raise somebody else’s child, you are still young, I do not want to steal your life from you by demanding you care for my son.  _

_ I am running out of time, and I don’t want to waste your time any longer, there is nothing more I can say than what I haven't already said. I guess I would like to be buried with Severus, if that can be arranged, but if it’s already too late, I won’t be upset. _

_ By the extreme off chance that Severus is still alive… would you tell him I love him?  _

_ Harry, I wish you every happiness in the world. Be safe, be happy, know that you are and will always be loved by a great many people. _

_ Sincerely,  _ _   
_ _ Remus Lupin _

See, Harry had gotten the letter sent to him just days after the final battle at Hogwarts, and well, it had-... back then he had no idea how to react to said revelation. It had taken weeks for him to fully come to terms with what he actually thought of it all, because it was all confusing him, and oddly, first and foremost he was annoyed, feeling patronized to be called a child who wouldn’t understand unrequited love and difficult circumstances.    
  
Further, the request had been made, and later on, Harry had indeed adopted Teddy Lupin on paper. However, he was a teenager still, even if he had dropped out of school and gone straight into a profession, being expected to be an adult. Harry had held absolutely no illusions that he would be able to maintain himself, being an adult in wizard society, and a father figure all in one, especially not so soon. Fortunately, Molly Weasley had been more than willing to care for the infant, and seemed to need it, and Harry could provide financial support because he was the legal guardian, wondering how the wizarding world allowed him to be that despite his age-... without it being seen as a charity by the Weasleys. 

See, some people seemed to have some kind of misconception that children automatically made people throw away their own concerns, problems and lives, because of the ultimate happiness of caring for another innocent life. That was of course absolute bogus, there wouldn’t be child protection services in the muggle world, or orphanages for the matter, had that been the case. People were individuals, and individuals had different lives, problems and references of matters, and having grown up with terrible individuals with awful issues, he would never impose a faulty childhood upon a child for the sake of his own happiness. If he could help it, he would not have a child struggle. 

He knew that his mother had been very young when having him, and had gotten married straight out of school, something which seemed like absolute lunacy to Harry no matter how his parents seemed to have loved one another, until Hermione had pointed out how common it was for people to rush into wanting to have marriage and children in war times, fearing that they wouldn’t live to experience it. That was all fine, he supposed, but what of the child? Harry did not regret being born, but he couldn’t help but to think that getting a child under war circumstances, rushed, inexperienced, young and desperate, could only lead to a disaster; did it not matter what the child would experience growing up? Having messed with the flow of time one times too many in his life, he wasn’t exactly regretting that he was born under the circumstances he was, he was just thinking that it seemed reckless, and not something he would repeat in an age where he wasn’t desperate.    
  
Indeed, the idea that a child would somehow make the unhappy happy again seemed almost dangerous of a misconception. People were not unhappy for nothing, and it wouldn’t magically go away from the notion of having a child. There were of course people who were different, who might have been the type of people who needed to feel like they were needed, like they protected something, to be happy. Harry felt ashamed to admit that Draco had probably had a point in the past, when he had insulted the Weasleys for having more children than they could afford, because it seemed that people who felt stuck in life resorted to find happiness in bringing children into the world, without too much of a concern with how that child will grow up. He didn’t blame the Weasleys though, he imagined a lot of people out in the world making that a mistake, but Arthur and Molly Weasley had always managed, always been good parents, and Harry would never blame them for their choices in procreation, as long as they could provide a steady childhood for the children. Molly just seemed that sort of one-of-a-kind woman who needed to care for others, and wanted to have the identity of a mother. The battle at Hogwarts had crushed her, she had lost so much, and it seemed to be keeping the woman together to care for an infant; Harry very much doubted he could have acted the same and provided stability for the child.   


He wasn’t upset with Draco for that old insult, since the boy had probably just aped after his father as he insulted the Weasleys anyway, they had been far too young to understand the concepts of maternity and parenthood back then.    
  
Harry would see to being there, as much as he could, in Teddy’s life, and he was visiting the Weasleys as often as he could. He would try to let the young child see the best of him, and when Teddy grew a little older, try to give him a choice of what he wanted, and if he would want to live with Harry.    
  
In hindsight, he probably should have mentioned some sort of context to Draco before he gave the other the letters, but Harry had, since the age of eleven, had shocking news broken to him in the least smooth of ways, to a point where it had just been natural for him to expect any sort of shock without proper explanation; he just sort of, forgot to explain himself.    
  
“Uh, I kind of hated Professor Snape so uh-... I don’t really know what to say. In our sixth year I found out that he had been bullied to a point near torture by my dad and godfather, when they were kids, and that my dad had really hurt him, and that I resemble dad a lot, especially with all my antics in school. Snape was apparently my mother’s best friend, and I sort of wish I could have known things about her from him, but I do understand that it was hard for him to have me around.”    
  
He looked away from the other and sighed, leaning back on the couch, only to stare up at the ceiling, with a sort of defeated look on his face. “If he was kind, caring and so very brave, I don’t think he would have protected you out of obligation and trickery, I don’t think he’d be capable not to care… even I felt pity for you in the end.”    
  
“They’re buried together, not a lot of people know that but I could make a pretty good legal case for it, because of the letter, and because I am Harry-frickin-Potter, and all that. Remus didn’t exactly have people who would attend, and neither did Snape, so it didn’t become that big of a deal, in the end.” 

It felt like Draco could at least know, based on the fact that he was one of the living people closest to Snape. He sort of regretted not having made certain Draco could attend the funeral.    


  
  
**Draco Malfoy:**   
Draco watched as Potter raised his head, and he saw the other’s hard, defined face lit up with a weak smile, a smile which reached all the way to the other’s eyes, causing those brilliantly green eyes to light up ever so slightly. The smile made him lose ten years in age, and suddenly, he almost seemed youthful again. The look woke… all sorts of strange, deep rooted emotions to swirl about in Draco’s stomach. With red ears, he quickly averted his eyes, avoiding to have to face or detangle those feelings deep within himself. 

Of all the things Draco did not expect Harry Potter to say, was stating that he was jealous of Draco for having known Snape. He didn’t manage to hide his surprise, much to his own annoyance, for hiding emotion was what a Malfoy was supposed to do the best. Yet before he really had time to respond, the other man ran away, leaving Draco alone on the couch with good old Chubby the unicorn. The former Slytherin ended up staring into the happy ceramic creature’s face, wondering whatever madness had possessed the creator in making it in the first place.

When his host came back, Draco was more than confused to have a collection of papers shoved into his hands. He looked form the letter to Potter, and when the other said nothing and just looked at him, Draco deemed that to be a push towards reading the papers in his hands. The very beginning of the letter told him that he wasn’t supposed to continue reading, and the plea was so sincere that he stopped to look up at his host, just to check that he really had permission to read it. 

The letter spoke about Severus Snape in a way that seemed unfamiliar from the Snape whom Draco had known. He could still see traces of the man he had known, but the letter insisted on these traits being falsified with the intent of making the former potions professor actually appear to be a Death Eater. It felt sour in a sense, that all he had known of the man seemed to be a veil which kept from having truly known him. Draco continued biting his lip while he read through the letter, trying to not feel overwhelmed by emotion. 

He got to the author of the letter dictating his love for the false Death Eater, and a memory washed over him from back when he was stuck in the deepest Death Eater circles. Many Death Eaters did not trust or like Severus Snape, not even after the man had killed Dumbledore. He was always alienated by a lot of people, and while others did trust him to be loyal, they wanted nothing to do with the man himself. Lucius Malfoy had been good friends with Snape, and had never once doubted the man’s loyalty, Draco had of course felt the same as his father, even more so after all Snape had done to help the stupid child who had undertaken things he couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Draco could recall a time when the Death Eaters had been particularly vocal about the potions professor having a relationship with someone on the other side, thus waking a lot of criticism leveled at his loyalty. In the end, as Draco had understood it, Snape had broken contact with his former partner. 

It wasn’t until he got to the end of the letter that he realized that the person whom Snape had had a relationship with was none other than the old Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Remus Lupin, a...werewolf. Draco recalled how people would openly harass his mother, blaming her and Bellatrix Lestrange for their sister Andromeda Tonks allowing her daughter Nymphadora to marry the werewolf named Lupin. That whole ordeal felt so very distant and alien to Draco that he never felt it was never something which personally affected him or his family at the time. He was ashamed nonetheless, because he was supposed to be. Werewolves were shameful to associate with or know. Yet… that madman Fenrir Greyback was a werewolf, and he was supposedly more than loyal. People didn’t shame the Malfoy family for their long distant relation with werewolves as long as Greyback was around. 

He finished the letter, looking up at his host while Harry Potter continued to speak about Severus Snape and the man’s funeral. Draco couldn’t help but feel stings of pain when he realized that nobody had even thought about inviting him or his family to the event, as they had actually been few of the people who did see Snape as a friend. The former Slytherin quickly realized that he didn’t have the right to complain, seeing as they were technically arrested by the time of the funeral. Nonetheless, he decided to ask Potter to take him to the gave, so that he could at least leave flowers and thank the man for all he had done for him. Still, to think that Remus Lupin and Severus Snape had a relationship… and they had broken up and Lupin had married another to protect the potions professor. Even had a child with somebody whom he didn’t love. 

...Hold on. Draco’s head fell and he reread a sentence, then he slowly lowered the papers, and looked straight into Harry Potter’s eyes, a sort of distant, strange look on his own face. He opened his mouth, and then closed it, only to try again, with more determination this time. “Lupin and the Tonks woman had a child? And you’re this child’s adopted father at this point?” Potter confirmed this by nodding, and Draco slowly opened his mouth again. “...Then… I… I’m related to that child. By blood. My mother’s sister’s daughter’s child…” It felt very clumsy to say it. Still, it felt… special in a curious kind of way. He was related to the child of the man whom Snape had seemingly been in love with. Draco felt his head spin, he wasn’t sure if he was happy or simply overwhelmed, but with so much death and horror having happened, knowing that he was related to somebody who had managed to have a child during those circumstances felt… almost a little good? It was hard to put his finger on why it felt good, maybe it was more relieving than it actually felt, well, good.

Draco looked up at Harry again, his eyes filled with a mix of confused emotions. “...Would it be possible to, uh… Meet that child, someday? I… I’m not sure why, I just… feel like maybe I should…If that is alright?” He had no idea why it mattered to him, he felt like he’d just take a look at the child, to help him determine if it really was shameful to be related to a half werewolf person. Somehow, it felt like just one glance would set all those things right in his head, and he’d never had to be ashamed of his connection to werewolves ever again. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's words had created quite the havoc in the house; Ron hadn’t wanted to hear the suggestion, immediately feeling like it was an accusation; Fred and George had gone from insulted to absolutely hysterically amused within a minute; Molly had smiled at Harry in a mysterious knowing manner; Ginny had simply looked at him the way she did when she was offended by something he said or was disappointed in him. Too bad Percy wasn’t home right then, he would have loved to see the young man’s reaction to his words.

**Harry Potter:**   
In the end, Harry hadn’t found it too hard to accept that Severus Snape might have been someone entirely different from who he believed him to be, most of all since well, he kind of wanted Snape to be better than that. Ever since he had seen those uncomfortable memories of the man in his sixth year, he had begun suspecting that something was seemingly very off. He didn’t like thinking that his father and Godfather would have unintentionally created a monster, and it really didn’t seem to be the case, so Harry was lucky to not have to face such a realisation; it was already hard enough to know what legend he and his parents have become, without having even more reason to see how faulty it was and how little any of them fit the description of legendary heroes, well, beside his mother maybe, but that was still stretching it. 

It was sort of comforting-... the idea that Severus Snape might have been a hero, truly, at least according to Remus Lupin, a man who Harry very much trusted, even in death. Most of all, he really, truly, wanted his werewolf-Godfather to actually have found some happiness, and he was endlessly thankful towards Snape for having created the lycanthropy potion to calm werewolves in the first place. Back in his third year at Hogwarts, he had been a little scared of the werewolf, but not as much as the wizarding world was terrified and completely prejudiced against it. It was later on, because he spent most holidays and free time with the Weasleys, and with Remus, that he actually got to know the man properly. He sort of-... wished he had known more about the man’s relation to Professor Snape, even if he had finally come to terms with that he might not have handled it too well back then, and that he could have risked blowing Snape’s cover, if he had known. People were always out to get him, and now that he knew that some wizards had other insane abilities such as reading minds, it really had been preferable for him not to know, and thus he could only be thankful that Remus had taken the time to actually tell him, in the end.    
  
Draco finished reading, and Harry realized that he had probably rambled a little too much while the other was reading, getting ahead of himself.    
  
It was-... a pleasant surprise when Draco’s first reaction was to want to visit their grave. He could think of a lot of things Draco Malfoy could have said, would have said, in the past, about Severus Snape’s involvement with a werewolf.    
  
Harry looked at the other and smiled, “Yeah, I feel like I should have invited you to the funeral but it was sort of rushed, and I had no idea what would become of any of the Malfoys back then-... we could go tomorrow? After my testimony, I mean.” Maybe they shouldn’t set any plans in stone, as there would be no telling how Draco would feel after his mother’s trial, depending much on how everything would go. If there would be time for it, they definitely should go, it wasn’t too far either, it had been sort of important to Harry that his family, yes Remus counted, was buried with somewhat close proximity to one another, even if not in a family grave. 

They did not get caught in the discussion of Narcissa Malfoy’s trial, as Draco suddenly stared back down at the paper, and was suddenly talking about Teddy, only to reveal something that should be so blatantly obvious in hindsight, but then again, Harry had confirmed himself to be rather bad at figuring out things beforehand.    


Draco Malfoy and Teddy Lupin were related by blood-... Harry was more shocked by the revelation than he looked, since he had mostly lost the ability to react strongly to surprises. “Aren’t most purebloods?” he answered, with a sort of mischievous grin on his lips. It wasn’t that he discredited Draco’s relation to his adoptive son, it was just the best thing he could come to think of in saying right then.    
  
What was more of a shock, an actual shock, was the look on Draco’s face, as he carefully started proclaiming that he wanted to meet Teddy. He knew Draco, an enemy was a sort of relation too, and the boy who had been raised to a pureblood fanatic wouldn’t normally ever want to see the son of a werewolf, even less admit that they were relatives.    
  
Harry felt something warm stir within himself. Had he grown up knowing that a single relative was left for him, one who wanted to see him and get to know him, it would have felt like his whole world would have changed, he wouldn’t have doubted his value as a human being as much as he always had. In the end, he was endlessly thankful to Draco for his reaction, because Harry cared far more for Teddy having a chance of knowing he has a living relative who wants to see him, one who would know far more about Tonks’s side of the family. Draco could be for Teddy what Harry never had until far too late in his life; someone who knew his relatives and family.   
  
Alright, now he really didn’t want Draco to end up in Azkaban. Now it was actually a matter important to him personally, and not just out of caring for Draco’s fate.    
  
Harry was getting impatient rather immediately, and with everything negative that was weighing them all down, he wanted to let Draco meet the child as soon as possible. He leaned a bit forward towards Draco, with a grin on his face; “Yes, yes you may. In fact, I think I’m going to visit the Weasleys the day after tomorrow, and you’re coming with me. Molly and Arthur Weasley are caring for Teddy, as of currently, because uh, well, I’m a child myself and I really don’t want to mess anything up for him.” That felt good to admit, huh. Just in case, he really wanted Draco to see the child, if everything went somehow wrong and the young man would be sent to Azkaban. He wanted Draco to be saved, he wanted Teddy’s relatives to not all have been horrible. Tonks, Sirius, Regulus Black, Draco, Narcissa, there were people who had risen up against the pureblood ideology and against Voldemort, and Teddy had much to be proud of, even in his mother’s side of the family. Harry only knew about Regulus Black’s sacrifices because Sirius had told him once, when they spent time around each other back in the Black family’s home, speaking of which, a home that Harry owned on paper by then, he just hadn’t had time to come around and head back there yet. He just couldn’t actually predict to what level Narcissa would be prejudiced against the child of a werewolf, even if he would manage to keep her safe from ending up in Azkaban, and was therefore very happy to know that at least Draco would want to meet the child.   
  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
Harry Potter’s smile was not sincere. Draco had seen the boy smile for real many times during his life, mostly during those last dinners at Hogwarts, where Gryffindor was celebrated as the victors of the House Cup. Alright, so he had seen Potter smile sincerely at other times as well, not that he had been looking! He has just happened to catch it every now and then. Either way, he knew very well what Potter’s real smile looked like, but instead of being upset that his old enemy wasn’t able to smile at him like Potter had smiled at his friends, Draco was all the more bothered to realize that his host probably couldn’t smile like he used to. War, misery, outsidership and loss all took its toll on a person, Harry Potter had been caught in that for most of his life, where everybody he met instantly hated or loved him based on qualities outside of the then-boy’s-now-man’s hands. It reached all the way around for Draco, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit sad to think that Potter might no longer be able to smile so openly, while also understanding why, and even finding himself a tad stupid for thinking that he was capable of making the other smile. 

Draco immediately felt self conscious of his own smile when he tried to return it. “I… would like that. It feels important somehow, to at least go leave flowers or… something. You… are supposed to leave flowers on graves are you not?” He quickly shut his mouth when he realized that he had trailed off, even talking out loud. It seemed that a few months in complete loneliness and fear made one rather prone to speak out loud to fill the silence. 

The topic continued to focus around the werewolf spawn, who tied both Draco and Harry together in a strange relationship of almost being family. Draco was more than surprised to find something change in Potter’s expression, it felt like watching a flower open up, revealing the most impossibly impressive colors hidden from view. His face lit up, his eyes started to gleam with life, the smile turned his lips upwards, causing all the defined features to look all the more soft. When Potter smiled for real, more or less beamed at the former Slytherin, Draco felt his heart skip in his chest, and to his great mortification, he could feel the redness spread over his cheeks. 

He couldn’t for his life understand why the other man suddenly seemed so happy, surely, that joke about incesetous pure blood families wasn’t that grand or impressive? Then Potter opened his mouth again, not only agreeing to taking Draco to see the child, but bringing the former Slytherin straight to the Weasleys’ home. Weasley. Weasleys’ home. It was so hard for the pureblood to accept that he was going to be coming along to the Weasleys’ home that he hardly understood the rest of the word which explained as to why little Teddy Lupin was over with Molly Weasley. 

His host stopped speaking, and Draco realized that by the laws of communication, he was supposed to reply. The noise which came out of his mouth, risen from the back of his throat by the thought of going to the Weasley family home was not something accepted as an answer, by those very same rules of communication. He took a deep breath, pretending that he couldn’t see the other man’s grin, and tried again. “We’re going to the, the… their home. I see. Well, alright.” That answer was almost within the laws of communication. 

Draco was bothered by going to the Weasley home for more reasons than just one. All his life, he had heard about The Burrow and how filthy, cramped and ugly it was. Even if he tried very hard to not think of the place that way, he couldn’t deny that he didn’t quite feel comfortable with going to such a place of poverty. Second was his relationship to the Weasleys, he and Ron had been constantly at each other’s throats, and he had never spared a thought in sending insults towards anyone in the family. He could not very well imagine going there without being scrutinized, and generally not welcomed in by the family. 

There was a third reason which bothered him all the more, he was very uncomfortable with the idea of meeting Arthur Weasley. The man had hated his father for so long, and the two men had never gotten along. With his father locked up in Azkaban for his crimes, Draco was more than worried that the man would treat him when Draco had no father to hide behind. From the way Lucius had talked about him, he was worried that Arthur would be so very gloating that he might even talk to Draco directly about his father deserving being locked up in Azkaban. After all, Lucius would talk down to and openly attack the Weasley children if he caught them unsupervised, why would Arthur Weasley be different? 

Draco noticed that he had been chewing on his lower lip, and thus he stopped, trying to regain control over his own body. He turned to glance at the clock on the wall, then turned back to Potter. “I believe I’ve had more than enough done for one day. How about we go to bed? Is there a guestroom or are you expecting me to sleep on the couch?” 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
With everything settled so very nicely, the smile didn’t quite leave Harry’s lips.    
  
He was visible excited for the prospect of letting Draco visit the child, and seemed very content with the fact that the other wasn’t arguing with him about going to his friends. He had expected Draco to be far more problematic on the matter of seeing the Weasleys, given the history the two families had with one another, and how much Ron and Draco had been fighting over the years in school.    
  
The idea that children had to carry on the disputes of their parents was idiotic. There wasn’t much more to say to that, and Harry was very glad that he had not inherited any stupid family disputes to deal with personally, not quite anyway, it had just been Professor Snape who had been a bother, and that wasn’t really because of the dispute as much as the plan.    
  
See, Harry did recall one specific moment in his past, uh, maybe during the summer between his fifth and sixth year, when he was starting to tire of the whole Malfoy-Weasley dispute immensely. It wasn’t as much that he would want to defend the Malfoys in any way, back then he would probably even have condemned Draco Malfoy, but he was tired of seeing the Weasleys display the same sort of ignorance and stooping down to the very same level. There was one thing to complain about pureblood mentality and discrimination, another one entirely to search for ways to insult the family, and he had just about had enough. Thus, Harry had opted to start a conversation about muggle culture with Arthur, in the middle of the man’s ranting about Lucius Malfoy, which immediately interrupted said man, who would always bite at a chance to discuss it, especially since Harry had been rather unwilling to, most of the time. He had talked about how muggles had relationships, talked a little bit about their strange need of naming different sexualities and categorizing them, and claiming one is more normal than others, but by slowly paving his way there, he managed to convey how much Arthur and Lucius acted like, in lack of better words, salty exes. It had created quite the havoc in the house; Ron hadn’t wanted to hear the suggestion, immediately feeling like it was an accusation; Fred and George had gone from insulted to absolutely hysterically amused within a minute; Molly had smiled at Harry in a mysterious knowing manner; Ginny had simply looked at him the way she did when she was offended by something he said or was disappointed in him. Too bad Percy wasn’t home right then, he would have loved to see the young man’s reaction to his words. Arthur himself had been too bewildered to quite know how to handle the words, once it started sinking in what Harry was actually asking, and thus, Harry had opted to continue describing how muggles generally only had that sort of obsession to create each other misery after having had a sexual relationship in the past. It was one of his more brilliant moments, or so Harry thought. He even smiled at the memory of it.    
  
Draco suggested for them to head to bed, and Harry had to agree. He sighed then, clearly a little disappointed. “Yeah, you’re right. I gotta be up early and not late for the trial tomorrow, but since the trial is by noon, I will probably be home again rather early. I can show you how to start up movies in the morning, if you want.” He was planning on letting the other stay in his house over the day, as he couldn’t really see a fault in it, right then. Most of all, it would likely be unwise to bring Draco to the Wizarding Court, no matter how unbiased they were supposed to act, it might affect Draco’s sentence if they were seen together in the Ministry before the trial.   
  
He paused, looking at Draco for a few moments, as he considered where he should let the other sleep. There was a guest room yes, it even had two beds, and Harry suspected that his parents had expected a lot of visits from their closer friends. Still, there hadn’t really been any recent use of that room, given that he hadn’t had many visits with people staying over. Ron had fallen asleep on the couch that one time he was over, and alone, because the girls were away on a spa experience that he had apparently refused to tag along on. Harry was a little disappointed that he hadn’t been invited, but had let it be, just so Hermione could experience showing the girls the muggle concept and have a true girls-only outing once in her life. Apparently Ron blatantly refusing to go had opened up such an opportunity, which was why Harry hadn’t been invited.

A little over a week ago when Hermione had shown up at his door, after a particularly bad fight between herself and Ron, she had really just slept in his bed, it was a big bed, and it allowed for them to speak to one another until they finally fell asleep; he never had any real romantic interest in her, aside from a few hormones jumping in the past, hence there was nothing strange with that. Just how often his two best friends seemed to be unable to tolerate each other was starting to worry Harry ever so slightly, but he did not have the energy to interfere or care too much. 

Ginny had also slept in his bed while they were still dating the first few weeks, but rather quickly realised that neither of them had the mental capability to keep the other sane and out of depressed thoughts right then, and had broken off for the time being. Ginny was a bit of his opposite, someone who needed to be left alone when feeling dreadful, and who couldn’t be there for his distraction, while he was rather… needy; really, it just hadn’t worked out at all.    
  
Harry very much liked not being alone, after everything, and would like not being alone the night before his words would weigh in heavily on someone else’s entire future. Still, he opted to answer all the questions.    
  
“There is a guest room, yeah, but it’s mostly unused and probably a little dusty. I could get you a blanket if you’d want to sleep on the couch. All in all, I’d say my bed is the most comfortable, and before you ask, it’s big enough for at least three people.” 

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
Draco weighed his options in his head, as if he really needed to hesitate where he wanted to be the most. The guest bed was evidently dusty, and it would be lonely to be in an unfamiliar place, even more so when he was so very worried about his mother’s wellbeing. The couch was more or less embarrassing, he had no desire whatsoever to sleep on somebody else’s couch, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he didn’t actually mind it. No, there was really no other option than for him to sleep in his host’s bed. 

“...Why, seeing as you really are trying to sell your bed, I shall accept your offer and accompany you, Potter.” He smirked at the other man, as if he knew that his host was the lonely one who needed company and companionship. It made him feel better, as if he was the one in control, who was graciously offering himself to keep Harry Potter company. “Lead the way then.” He stood up and grabbed Chubby the unicup, which he left in the kitchen before following his host to the bedroom. 

The bed was indeed giant, it was bigger than his parents’ bed, and far larger than his own. In fact, it was so big that Draco felt as if the other man was trying to make a joke out of… something, due to the sheer unnecessary size of the bed. He could see no such thing on the other man’s face, so he circled the bed and lay down on the side which looked the least used. It felt strange somehow, not too horrible or frightening, he was simply very aware that Potter’s bed had not been made or placed here with the expectation that somebody like him would ever lay in it. 

Draco felt tired beyond belief, but he couldn’t fall asleep as easily as he had expected that he would. He and Potter had said good night, a little awkwardly, and both had turned away from the other. Despite the room being dark, Draco’s collar curse lit up the room with its faint luminescence, spreading a weak, pale light from where he was lying. 

The former Slytherin was pondering his life choices, not the ones he had already made for once, but instead, he was thinking of his future. He hadn’t expected to be given a chance to continue with his life, but now when Harry Potter wanted to make sure he wasn’t locked up in Azkaban, Draco realized that he might have a life after four days. With his family’s fortune, he could very well not work for the rest of his life and still be fine when he reached the end of it, but what kind of life was that? Would he really be happy, would he really be redeemed if he stayed hidden all his life? Draco bit his lower lip, thinking about his guilt to society in regards the crimes he had indeed committed. The Malfoys were Death Eaters, everybody had always thought that, and they had always been right. His father had manipulated, threatened and even hurt people to get things the way he wanted them. Under the hand of his father’s, the Malfoys had been pureblood elitists but also liars, criminals, and in some regards, just evil. Draco would be taking over as the family head one day, and he shuddered by the thought that his legacy would be the same as the previous Malfoy’s. 

Then how did one change that? What could the foolish little Draco Malfoy accomplish in life? What could he give back, what could possibly change the heavy burden of his name into something he was proud to carry? How could the public begin to even trust his name again? 

Draco thought of Severus Snape, thought of the man’s struggles through life, and how he had worked hard to make himself horrible. If one could make themselves bad, could one also make oneself good? Snape’s work at Hogwarts had always been a problem to the man’s status as a spy, for while he had been seemingly loyal to the Death Eaters, he was also always chastised for his close connection to the school which they didn’t like. It was almost like Hogwarts had such prestige that it was almost impossible to not respect somebody who worked there. Even Remus Lupin had been more or less accepted by the school, and according to the rumors, he left on his own accord in fear of damaging the school’s reputation. So mighty was Hogwarts, that your crimes could be forgotten. More or less. 

...Hold on, wasn’t that perfect then? If he wanted to reshape and further his name, to become something more than just a boy living in the shadow of his Death Eater supporting name, then he could work hard and try to become a teacher, with the aim of getting a job at Hogwarts or some other wizarding school. Hogwarts would still be the ultimate goal, but it wasn’t the only school in the United Kingdom. For a moment, he thought back at the great comfort Severus Snape had been to more or less the entire Slytherin house, and his thoughts were more or less settled.

It actually seemed like a good plan, he would of course need to go back to studying, and retake a few exams before that, but it was still possible for him to graduate school and then continue on to become a teacher. He would need to get into contact with a member of the Department of Magical Education, book a meeting, and then proceed to figure out more options for that. He was not the only person who hadn’t finished school, there were ways to become more than somebody who failed school. 

With these reassuring thoughts, Draco began to be able to actually relax. He glanced over his shoulder, and found that Harry Potter seemed to be asleep. He hesitated, but then decided to carefully scoot closer and wrapped his arms around the other from behind, curling up to the man. Draco didn’t have a big build, but he was no longer as thin as he had been during his sixth year at Hogwarts, where he had barely been able to eat properly due to fear and stress, all in all, he was rather average. Harry Potter was a little bigger in build that average, he had broad shoulders and a bigger ribcage, making him look a lot stronger than an average man usually did. Draco didn’t feel insecure when he hugged the other from behind, effectively becoming the bigger spoon in the position, but he was absently aware that he was a bit smaller than the other man. The former Slytherin wasn’t too used to feel the need for comfort, but he couldn’t deny to himself that feeling the other man’s warm back against his chest, feeling his body rise and sink as he breathed, and that burying his nose in the wild, black hair, was all so very, very comforting. Draco fell asleep like that, hugging Harry Potter, while planning on blaming it on sleepwalking, if the other showed that he was displeased, or Goodness forbid pleased, with the close proximity, the next day. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He guided Draco through the cemetery, and already in the distance he could see the stature of a well dressed woman, standing in front of the grave they were about to visit, and thus, Harry smiled, and made certain to grab Draco’s flowers, to give the other some more freedom in movement, and to save the flowers, just in case.

**Harry Potter: **

Upon heading to bed, Harry found that the worries and depressing thoughts which he had managed to somewhat suppress, by distracting himself with Draco, slowly resurfaced. He had hoped to talk more to his companion in the bed, but then again he knew that it was past midnight, and he had to be prepared, and not half asleep, during the upcoming day. Hence, he really tried to sleep, lying down with his back towards his guest, staring at the wall. It was easier that way, the light of the collar curse was actually visible in the dark, making it better to keep his back towards Draco, to avoid the light.    
  
Harry knew he would get himself through the night, somehow, he always sort of did even if it was nothing short of Hell when the doubts hit him the hardest. Time passed, and he didn’t struggle against the tide of anxiety that wallowed up inside him, he just tried to sleep despite it.    
  
Suddenly, he heard stirring and movement; honestly Harry had no idea how long had passed and he had thought the other was asleep by then, judging by how still and silent Draco had been.    
  
When the other scooted over to him and wrapped himself around Harry, he didn’t move or open his eyes, but a smile spread over his lips, and he was smiling even as he finally fell asleep.    
  
\-----   
  
The following morning Harry was nothing short of a living dead, at least until he had managed to get some caffeine into himself. He had woken up entangled with no other than Draco Malfoy, which had served an excellent reminder that he did indeed have Draco over as a guest, and it also cheered him up rather immediately with the sheer bizzarity of it. He got even happier remembering the fact that Draco was a living relative who wanted to see Teddy. Weren’t living relatives just wonderful?   
  
Before he left the house, he made certain that Draco had proved that he could start up the TV on his own, as well as start up movies; he didn’t bother to teach the other to play the VHS back again, Harry could do that when he got home again. 

Thus, he stepped over the ‘Welcome in, unless you are a vampire’ rug at the front porch, locked the door and was on his way. He was rather pleased to find that he didn’t worry about leaving Draco alone in his home, in fact, he would be most delighted if things just proceeded like this, because it meant Draco was showing himself trustworthy for real, and it wasn’t just something he had reasoned together without much personal experience. 

\-----

“Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry said politely, nodding at her, but his polite expression very quickly turned into a delighted grin.    
  
It was met with a very neutral smile, but Harry was almost certain he could see her lips quirk upwards ever so slightly in response to his maniacal grin.    


They had done it. She was free of charges.    
  
While Harry had come to absolutely despise the corrupt byrochratic mess that happened to be the Wizarding Court, he had at least found that he could use it to his advantage; he couldn’t help but to briefly wonder if that was how Albus Dumbledore had always felt, upon witnessing at trials. In the beginning, Harry had been more than uncomfortable with corrupt trials, especially with his previous bad experiences of them, but he had definitely come out of his shell to manage them rather well; perhaps there were ways in which Dumbledore was in fact a good influence, such as teaching him the ability to forcefully interrupt people, by having enough authority in his voice.   
  
There came a moment when they had questioned why his words should overrule the general negative attitude towards the wife of Lucius Malfoy, as she was an adult and therefore had even less excuses than Draco, especially so since she never witnessed to have experienced any abuse from her husband. In response to all that, he had literally reminded the Court of all the times which Dumbledore’s testimony had overruled a majority, and how Voldemort would have ruled them all by now, had it not been for Narcissa Malfoy’s single-handed defiance against the monster of a man.    
  
Being Harry-freakin-Potter had its moments, even if it was in majority nothing positive. He only hoped he could keep it up for Draco’s trial as well.    
  
How Narcissa Malfoy managed to keep such a calm demeanor despite having been locked up in a holding cell was beyond Harry. She was by no means the woman of authority she used to appear as, her clothes were a bit dirty, but she had clearly made use of water to clean her face and skin, and her hair was neatly put up, which hid away most of how dirty it was. He thought he could glance relief behind her eyes, however, which only caused his already big grin to grow wider.    
  
Harry proceeded to tell Narcissa that her son was currently staying with him and that she was welcome to visit at practically any time. At the mentioning of Draco, it seemed his mother tensed up ever so slightly, only to draw a shaky breath of relief to know her son hadn’t been harmed or attacked, while being alone out there.    
  
Harry smiled, leaned in and whispered something in her ear, before he left the Courthouse, very happy that his trial excused him from work right then, and the weekend was approaching.    
  
\-----

“Draco?” Harry called as he closed the door behind himself, and for a moment, perhaps he felt a little bit nervous. It was a possibility that the young man would not be there, for a myriad of reasons, after all, and he very much hoped that the other would still be there, since he had even gone as far as having faith in the other.

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
“Good bye, Potter.” Draco watched as his host disappeared out the door, leaving him alone in an unfamiliar house. He had argued for coming with Potter to the Ministry but had been rejected in a speedy fashion, with Harry arguing that it might ruin the chances for his mother if the two of them were seen accompanying each other. Draco could not argue with that, thus he had to resign himself to waiting until the other man came back with the result of the trial. 

Draco and Chubby the Unicup spend the first hours of the day watching the movie Dirty Dancing, which was… a movie. It had a lot of muggle culture in it that Draco didn’t quite understand, but he understood most of the concepts. He had often attended wizard ballets and similar with his father, so he had some idea what dancing was like to watch, but he hadn’t actually seen anything like the movements the artists performed on the TV in this movie. He wasn’t quite sure when he got that invested into it, but by the end of the movie, he was cheering for Baby and the guy to dance together. 

Draco looked at the clock, Potter still hadn’t returned and he was starting to feel restless from sitting in front of the TV for so long. Thus, he got up and began walking around in the house, exploring it. He found a few things here and there on cupboards and shelves which he didn’t understand and therefore attributed to ‘muggle-things.’ He recognized a few other items here and there, but for the most part he was just absently looking about, while trying very hard to resist the urge to open and look inside of drawers and cabinets. He did allow himself to look about in the cupboards of the kitchen, as well as the cabinets, reasoning that it was very unlikely that there would be anything private or hidden in the cabinet under the sink. He had already located the stash of tea, and had probably had more than enough cups for one day, but was still satisfied with the knowledge that he still had five more blends to try out.

To his great horror, he found an array of horrendos mugs and cups in one of the cabinets. One said ‘I love you’ and another said ‘I know’ in the same font, allowing Draco to pair them together. Another was black with a flaming red and yellow logo reading AC/DC, which the pureblood wizard didn’t have any idea what it stood for. Then there was a cup with a collection of cute dancing mice, and another one reading ‘I wish this was chocolate.’ Draco had no way of knowing it, but the cups belonged to James, Lily, Sirius, Peter and Remus, in that order. If he had known, he would have wondered who in the world was supposed to use Chubby the Unicup, but seeing as all he could see was insane cups, he ended his reasoning with the Potters being insane mug collectors. 

After rereading The Daily Prophet for a second time that day, with the unicorn mug by his side, and beginning to wonder if he should try his hand at picking another movie or perhaps even wash some dishes, he heard the keys in the door, and soon, Harry Potter’s voice rang out from the hall. 

Draco detangled himself from the chair he had been sitting on, and came over to the door, peeking first to make sure Potter was alone. He did very much not want to embarrass himself in being seen in Potter’s T-shirt and pajama pants. When he confirmed that it was just his host and nobody else, he then moved out of his hiding spot, acting as if nothing whatsoever was wrong, or like he hadn’t just carefully peeked around the corner. 

He thought that he would be able to behave civilized, but as soon as he could, he hurried over to Potter, and grabbed his hands, staring into the other’s eyes like he was about to break down crying. “My mother? What happened to my mother?” Draco had imagined that he would have been able to ask calmly, but the absolute terror that wrapped around his heart was so very choking that it was all he could to do beg for an answer, while fighting to keep from keeping the tears from flowing. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Akin to a small and somewhat scared animal, Draco Malfoy peeked around the corner of the end of the hall, as if to make certain that the coast was clear.    
  
Within a second, Harry had been grabbed, Draco staring at him in desperation, and for a second time that day his lips quirked up into a smile with almost maniacal glee.    
  
“She’ll meet us by the cemetery, you have approximately one and a half hour to get ready.”    
  
The blonde man’s reaction was to immediately break down into tears, and pushed forward, hiding his face against Harry’s shoulder. Thus, Harry was left there, coat and shoes still on, in the hallway for some time, and he reached up to stroke Draco’s hair carefully.    
  
He couldn’t blame the other. Harry himself felt a little shaken, but was a little too numbed from emotions to feel the impact just yet, he was more likely to feel the full weight and euphoric release of having managed to save the woman somewhere late at night when he least expected it. Thus he proceeded to tell Draco a little bit of the trial itself, and his almost insane statement of that if they had listened to Albus Dumbledore over other people, there was no reason they shouldn’t listen to Harry-freakin-Potter, maybe not exactly in those words, especially after him and Narcissa alone being the reason that the Dark Lord was in fact vanquished once and for all. 

**Draco Malfoy: **

As he heard that his mother was safe and would be able to return home without problem, even meeting them later that day, he felt such an intense amount of relief that he couldn’t do much more than to break together crying. It wasn’t pretty or graceful in any sense of the words, and he realized that he was ashamed enough with his behavior to need to hide away, as he could not actually stop himself from crying. Thus, Harry Potter became his stand, his support and the shoulder on which to cry, as Draco moved forward, grabbed onto the man, and hid against said shoulder. In his state of utter relief and thankfulness, he didn’t even care that he wasn’t acting proper, and Potter didn’t seem to mind, adding to Draco feeling more comfortable crying against his shoulder than he felt standing in front of the man crying. He might have sobbed harder as Potter stroke over his hair, comforting him as he let his emotions out. 

When he had calmed down enough to be able to listen to the other’s words, he listened, after getting some paper with which to blow his nose with. The retelling was rather reassuring, and he could feel sparks of hope move inside his chest, as his mind once again accepted that it might be a reality that he could actually go free at the end of this. Harry Potter’s word really carried that much weight, it truly couldn’t be denied after the man himself saying it, and after having seen his mother go free thanks to the other’s words. 

Draco took a deep breath, he had finally managed to calm down completely, and was feeling more than embarrassed for his previous breakdown. He agreed with Potter’s words with a few nods, as he could not quite figure out how to respond with words to the fact that Harry Potter’s opinion weighed so heavily in a trial. Part of him didn’t question it, as a powerful wizard or witch speaking up for another was one of the most ancient and honored actions of loyalty within the wizarding world. Still, as a person whom had hated Harry Potter for most of his life, he couldn’t help but agree that a single person’s opinion being enough to sway an entire community might not actually be too democratic of a process. 

To avoid thinking about it too much, Draco excused himself to go wash his face as to try and get back into some resemblance of presentableness. When he returned, he didn’t waste time, instead picked his clothes up and returned to the bathroom, only to yet again re-enter the living room, dressed once more. 

“There, I am ready to leave whenever we shall.” He hesitated and then continued, “I would like to get some flowers for the grave, and I don’t believe either of us have had lunch as of yet. If you don’t want to remain here, perhaps we could get moving right away?”

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Harry was starting to feel like he was getting very comfortable with Draco’s presence, and he was starting to wonder if it was something that had always been there, or if it was just the circumstances that were messing with them, the consequences of the war, and all that. Well, eh, he didn’t exactly mean always, but more like, the familiarity with Draco’s presence, even if they hadn’t been friends, after the war and the loss of so many, and then perhaps adding it with Draco being pretty much the only person he ever met who wasn’t impressed with him for being The-Boy-Who-Lived, excluding fake-antagonistic potion teachers from that equation.    
  
Once again, Harry wondered what would have happened under different circumstances, if they had been friends. Slytherin students were always so very isolated from the other students that it was hard to believe that he could have been Draco’s friend, but as an adult, he also understood how damaging it must have been to only have people of their own opinion around them, and have everyone else turn their backs against them.    
  
As they left the house, Draco telling him about the movie he watched and they ended up discussing the strangeness of muggle culture, Harry really found that he enjoyed giving remarks, teasing the other ever so much for his ignorance, in a friendly manner, and he was more than pleased to be able to tell that he was having an influence over the other. It was especially clear as Draco didn’t refuse when Harry brought him to a muggle restaurant with Thai food. Everything inside the place was painted in a brighter red color, with golden details and carvings to a point where Harry had to admit himself simply impressed. It was one of Harry’s favourite places to go to, he enjoyed spicier food, and enjoyed knowing more of culture around the world. Anyway, it was just a lunch, so he wouldn’t go overbroad the way he was known to when it came to trying out food, both as a child and grownup. Even as they sat in the very decorated restaurant, with lots of small statues, paintings and decorated furniture, he was enjoying how clear it was that he handled the world better than Draco. Maybe there could have been a world where the two of them sort of got along, even in school; it seemed impossible as it was, but Draco wasn’t an idiot, he couldn’t lie about truths being presented right in front of his eyes.   
  
As he ate, Harry bitterly realised that his idea was actually impossible, and it didn’t even have anything to do with Draco. It all came back to that there would be no way he could have argued with the Slytherin the ways he did today, messed with him and joked with him, as long as he had been left behind without the slightest bit of understanding for the magical world. For a world where he could have known the Slytherin properly, he would have been required to understand the world around him enough to argue back; Harry had lost count of times he was told what something was, or of it’s very existence, upon or after the first contact with it. Death Eaters was a good example of that, or Voldemort’s mark for the matter. It just felt like something that would have been bloody useful to tell The-Boy-Who-Lived beforehand.   
  
At least, he made certain not to try to embarrass Draco, or stress him out, with forcing him to directly interact with the muggles and new experiences around them, Harry did most of the talking, and for him it was really enough to have Draco thank the waiter upon bringing the food, even if it had been after Harry said it first. 

Both in the restaurant, on the streets, and in the flower shop, Harry did notice a few suspicious glances towards the two of them, and sighed, and inadvertently rolling his eyes. While muggle culture was far superior to wizarding culture in many ways, clearly, there were other things that had started to seem bloody moronic, while Harry had grown up in a different society altogether. He did realize that he and Draco didn’t look related, that Draco was very posh and had a natural hair color most muggles could only hope to achieve by bleaching their hair repeatedly, and that they were acting close, mostly because the other was technically using Harry as a bit of a shield and source of safety from the world around himself. Harry would never quite understand why muggles would put so much bloody energy into other people’s private affairs, especially if two people of male origin just happened to be romantically involved with one another, not that they were, but Harry could definitely see why muggles would think that they were. It just seemed so bloody pointless when so many other things were happening in the world, whatever two people did together, were happy together, did harm to absolutely no one, and shouldn’t be special enough to warrant stares. Luckily, the stares were few, but it was easily recognized for someone who had lived all his life knowing what that stare of interest looked like, not to even mention judgemental stares.    
  
At last, they arrived at the cemetery; by then, Harry had let Draco pick out all the flowers for the both of them, it seemed to distract the young man nicely. Harry almost felt good, even if visiting the cemetery was a bit of an emotional jump, now that there were people there whom he had actually known and had a connection to, and not simply people bound to him by bloodline and legend. It was hard to miss someone you didn’t actually know, rather, with his parents, it just hurt to know that he missed out on ever getting to know them, or establishing a connection.    
  
He guided Draco through the cemetery, and already in the distance he could see the stature of a well dressed woman, standing in front of the grave they were about to visit, and thus, Harry smiled, and made certain to grab Draco’s flowers, to give the other some more freedom in movement, and to save the flowers, just in case. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We would like to add a note for people who are interested in this type of paragraph-post written roleplay with one another. Normally, it's highly discouraged to write anything for the other writer's assigned character, their reactions or actions etc, it's called Auto-playing, and we by no means encourage that. 
> 
> The difference for us is that we can turn to one another and ask any time if it's alright to write a certain reaction of the other's assigned character. Remember to always have approval from the person before you write for their assigned character.


	8. Chapter 8

**Draco Malfoy:**   
Walking about with Harry Potter in the muggle world was a very curious experience, one which Draco wasn’t sure that he disliked. It was stressful to be around so many Muggles, especially since he wasn’t able to use magic, but was walking around with a magical, self luminated charm around his neck. He had of course pulled his scarf around the mark, keeping it from being seen or noticed by the world, but the knowledge that it was there was stressful in itself. 

Harry Potter became a very big safety in a world like this, and Draco found himself standing and walking close to him, even grabbing on to his arm at times, when he was worried that they might be separated from one another in the bigger crowds. 

They ate at a rather impressive Muggle-place, where Draco was introduced to curious strong food that he rather liked, and then they continued on to a small flower shop. It was small to the pureblood, but in reality, it was an average sized shop, filled with flowers. The shop itself was rather empty, so the wizard found himself comfortable with walking around on his own, leaving Potter to take care of himself, as Draco found it very improbable that the man knew his flowers. As for the former Slytherin, it was not that he knew his flowers per say, as much as his mother had been very educated in the matter. Draco was glad to know that he did remember and recognized a lot of flowers, even in a Muggle shop like this one. It was, however, rather jarring how simple all the flowers were; no extraordinary colors, nothing moved, nothing sang, and very stem was green without exceptions. Overall, it wasn’t impressive in the least to a wizard. 

Only when they exited the shop, both carrying their bouquets, did Draco come to notice that people were looking at them. He was a little nervous that his scarf had slipped, but nothing was out of order. After some confusion, he settled on it probably just being Harry Potter whom they were looking at.

They reached the graveyard, and Draco began looking around for his mother right away, trying to spot her. Potter guided him through the cemetery, and in the distance he could see the stature of a well dressed woman, whom was unmistakably his mother. Somewhere next to him, his flowers were removed from his grasp, and the blonde man broke into a run, hurrying over to Narcissa Malfoy. She turned towards him, and he could see her face light up, as she held out her arms, welcoming him into a hug as he reached her. Mother and son embraced, and he could feel the woman starting to cry into his hair, holding him tighter than he could ever recall being held before. 

Narcissa started to speak to him, and like she always did when she was nervous or stressed, she began speaking Welsh. His mother had been born in England, but she had spent a lot of her time in Wales when she was younger, thus, the language had become second nature to her. She had taught her son how to speak Welsh, and while Draco never spoke it with anyone who wasn’t his mother, he was fluent in the language. 

His mother showered him with questions about how he had been, that he looked unhealthy and stressed, she quickly began blabbering about the manor, and how she had seen what they had done to their home, only to quickly return to being concerned for her son’s well being in having been stuck in there alone when those vandals had passed by. Draco tried to calm her down, but not before agreeing that the vandals had been frightening. The two continued to speak in Welsh, until Narcissa noticed Harry Potter, who was standing close to them with a lot of flowers in his hands. After asking Draco if he had picked the flowers, and praising him for the well matching colors, she walked up to Potter, and reached out her hand for him to shake. She looked much, much better compared to earlier that day, her hair was washed and her makeup applied to cover up the signs of her incarceration. 

“Mr. Potter, thank you kindly for taking care of my son.” Behind her, Draco made a face, as he didn’t quite like the implication of ‘being taken care of’ by Harry Potter. He couldn’t quite decide if the ‘taken care of’ or ‘by Potter’ was the worst part of his mother’s statement. “And, of course, for your assistance in the trial. I am officially granting you access to visiting Malfoy manor whenever you desire, you will always be welcomed, but I would like an owl announcing your arrival rather than just have you appear, mind you. As one of the few friends of Severus Snape’s, I also wish to express my most humble appreciation for allowing him rest within the earth, in a marked grave.” She hesitated before continuing, turning to glance back at Snape’s and Lupin’s gravestone. “But I have to ask, why is he buried together with a werewolf?” It was clear that the woman was trying very hard to not show her discomfort with the mention of the werewolf. She turned back towards Potter, and pointed towards another grave, on the other side of the path which they were standing on. “One whom I am certain was married to the woman lying in the grave opposite of theirs. I would very much like an explanation for this.” 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Family truly was an alien concept.   
  
To Harry, watching Draco sprint off into the safe embrace of his mother’s arms was as much of a magical and foreign concept to him as unicorns or strange magical collar curses. He was aware of the concept, he had come to terms with that it did exist, and he had seen them, but it still felt rather fantastical to him, especially watching both of them respectively break down ever so slightly in the relief of being together again. He knew that he was jealous, he could feel it in him, but simultaneously he was feeling a sort of euphoric high of just watching the two of them, it made him feel good, satisfied and happy; it felt like he was watching something beautiful.   
  
It wasn’t that he had no family, his closest friends and the Weasleys were very much family to him, and had become his family, but he couldn’t quite connect to the feeling of being bound to someone… Perhaps there was no difference. Narcissa looked no different from Hermione’s face upon finding that he was alive after the battle, maybe he had just been overthinking it. He really would have to think deeper about that at some point.   
  
When Narcissa Malfoy turned her attention to him, Harry reached out to hand Draco’s flowers back again, so that he could properly shake the woman’s hand.   
  
“Don’t mention it, I think it’s the very least I could do,” he answered, beaming back at her, as he really did feel good about the fact that her trial was over and done for… now there was only Draco’s trial left. “Besides, I think he might have been taking care of me, just as much.” That wasn’t entirely true, but the close proximity had helped him sleep properly, and the company had been just what he needed.   
  
She continued to announce that he was welcomed into the Malfoy estate-... eh, well, uh, yeah. It might just not be the most appealing of ideas to be back to the place he had only seen when it was under Voldemort’s control, even if it was certainly an honor and joy to know she was willing to extend him the invitation, despite his whole being a half-blood. Then again, perhaps it would be good for him to see it under different circumstances, to chase away the bad memories; that could be an idea further in the future.   
  
Then came the moment he had honestly waited for, because for this very once, he had been prepared. He very much wanted to see the woman’s reaction to the words he was about to utter, and it was part of the reason why he wanted to meet her at the cemetery, even if the foremost reason was to reunite mother and child. 

“Well, that werewolf happens to be my Godfather,” he said, somewhat cheerfully considering the circumstances, smiling fondly at the stone. It probably would have hurt more to be there had he not spent a considerable amount of time in said cemetery, both during and after the war.   
  
“See, he and Snape were lovers, ever since they were teenagers, and I think they were reunited, sort of, when my Godfather started teaching at Hogwarts, during our third year. Actually, I have this, and I thought you were probably the only other people who should read this, seeing that you are related to Tonks, and Snape is your friend.”   
  
Out of the inner pocket of his coat he produced Remus’s letter. He would have been far more careful had he not been a wizard, and hence completely capable of repairing said letter, if something was to happen to it. It was sort of worth the look on Draco’s face, and it felt good to for once in his life be prepared. “I suppose it’s a bit of a Romeo and Juliet story, but he wasn’t ever really a Death Eater-...” He stopped himself when he realized that the others wouldn’t understand his muggle references, and hence shrugged and gave Narcissa the letter.   
  
He let the woman read in peace, unlike he had with Draco, before he spoke up.   
  
“Seeing you are some of the only living relatives of Teddy, I was hoping you would see him in the near future, and be there for him; I think that is the least you could do. Having living family should never be underestimated.” He spoke with a bit of a stronger emphasis on the last bit, making himself very clear of what he expected of them. Teddy was not going to grow up anything like Harry himself, he had vowed to make sure of it. It wasn’t that relatives were more important than friends, but it was certainly a good start, and better than having scorned Death Eaters, who would refuse seeing the child, as relatives.

See, Draco had proven that it wasn’t impossible for a Malfoy to change for the better, and he truly hoped Narcissa could adapt as well. Times were changing, there was no room for pureblood mentality, and Harry was happy to assist in eradicating the bigotry that came with said mentality. 

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
It took Draco half a second before he realized that he was supposed to take the flowers, and he ended up hurrying over to Potter’s side, accepting the bouquet back from him. He stood to the side then, watching Harry Potter and his mother speak. Now and then, he would glance back at the other man, unable to hide his confusion and worry in what the other said, but if Narcissa Malfoy noticed her son’s reactions, she pretended that she didn’t. 

The woman’s eye twitched as Potter mentioned ‘werewolf’ and ‘godfather’ in the same sentence. It twitched once more upon the man continuing to speak, and by the time Harry Potter pulled the letter out of his pocket, much to both Malfoys surprise, her mouth had become a thin, displeased streak. Draco was more than a little scared to have the half-blood had mention the Tonks family, but his mother kept her response back. 

“Ah, yes,_ Romeo and Juliet _.” Narcissa nodded upon the mentioning of the title, observing the letter in the young man’s hand. “Shakespeare. I have studied contemporary Muggle literature in my younger days.” Potter made an amused noise upon the woman saying the word ‘contemporary.’ The noise eared a stern glance from the mother, and a highly confused one from the son. 

Calmly, she extended a gloved hand, and accepted the letter, which she opened and began reading. Draco caught the former Gryffindor’s eye, and while the latter was grinning like a madman, a certain shine to his eye, the former was clearly trying not to panic. 

She finished reading, closed the letter, and turned towards Potter once more, extending the letter back to him as the young man began speaking. Narcissa looked down at him as the words kept on coming from his lips, Draco stared back and forth between them, he could feel the glee from Potter, and the disapproval from Mrs Malfoy. 

_ “Seeing you are some of the only living relatives of Teddy, I was hoping you would see him in the near future, and be there for him; I think that is the least you could do. Having living family should never be underestimated.” _

Potter finished speaking, leaving the woman glaring at him. It seemed as if the air between them was thick enough to be cut with a potion knife. 

“Mother.” Draco spoke up in Welsh, looking at her with slightly nervous eyes. “Me and Potter are going to see the child tomorrow, he is currently growing up over at the Weasleys’ home, under the care of Mrs. Weasley. The only living relatives the boy has is us, and” he stopped to lick his lips, clearly hesitation in speaking the words, “Andromeda Tonks. Mother, all our acquaintances are dead, those who aren’t are in Azkaban with father. The way I see it, we have to forge new bonds with new people, not only pure bloods. If we do not, we will be stuck on the outside forever, and then we will be taken use of by another crazy maniac who’s trying to divide the entirety of the wizarding world. Yes, he was, you know very well that he was at this point.” He could feel his legs shake slightly from speaking up against his mother. “We only have that child and Andromeda, everyone else is gone. Mother, I don’t want to hide out in our manor, forever shunned by the rest of society, until I’m dead. I want more, and if I’m locked up for my crimes, you will be all alone out here. I don’t want that for you. Tomorrow, I will go see the werewolf’s child, and I will accept whatever I see, and I will acknowledge him as part of my family, with your approval or not.”

Narcissa stared at him with eyes that could make a wizard’s beard fall off, until she slowly relaxed her face, when resignation came over her. She could not deny her son’s words, and she could not pretend to want to spend the rest of her days alone. They were out of options, they could no longer act as if they were something standing above others, without becoming an isolated object of hate. 

“Draco, you sound like… my sister.” Draco could not remember her ever calling Andromeda sister. “I… never thought I would say that and mean it as a compliment.” She turned to Harry Potter, and continued. “And you, you look like my cousin.” She spoke, meaning Sirius Black. “Never have I wanted to use Muggle violence so much as I do looking at your face.” 

“Mother.” Draco stated, in English. “You’re speaking Welsh still, Potter doesn’t understand it.” 

“Oh I know.” Narcissa reverted back to English now, looking at the young man with a somewhat pleased smile. “I shall send an owl to Molly Weasley as soon as possible, they still live in that a… building called The Burrow, no? Good. I have… another letter to write as well…” She added, a deep, stern sadness welling up in her eyes upon speaking those words. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Harry Potter had faced dangers beyond what most wizards and witches could conceive properly; a stern-looking, pureblood fanatic of a woman was not very highly ranked on said list of dangers. Besides, Harry was so tired of the whole idiocy of the wizarding world that his patience was wearing rather thin. He had saved Mrs. Malfoy from a fate in Azkaban, given her a new chance of a life, and he was not afraid to demand a thing or two from her.   
  
To everyone’s surprise, Draco spoke up, once more speaking-... Harry wasn’t exactly sure what language they were speaking. It sounded vaguely familiar, and after a while he assumed it was Welsh, or had to be; he would make sure to ask Draco later, just to not get it wrong.   
  
What Harry did notice was that Draco seemed terrified; Harry almost completely honestly considered walking over to stand beside him, just to catch him in case his legs would actually give in., but reconsidered because he would probably embarrass the other. 

He could only vaguely guess that the mother and son were discussing his proposal, well eh, demand, and that Draco was on his side of the matter, from the woman’s stern and shocked expressions. 

_ “Mother.” _ Draco stated, in English. _ “You’re speaking Welsh still, Potter doesn’t understand it.” _

Ah, well that was one less thing to ask then. He’d have to remake that reminder into asking Draco what she said, later.  
  
At last, Mrs. Malfoy seemed to give in, and was clearly agreeing to his proposal, especially so if she was willing to communicate with the Weasleys on her own; Harry had been fully prepared to have to act as some sort of messenger.   
  
“Brilliant,” he responded, his grin growing ever so slightly wider, having no idea that it would probably only remind the woman further of her cousin.   
  
With the business sorted, Harry turned his attention to the graves, and despite feeling sadness and loss well up inside of him, he was more than satisfied with his recent achievement. He stepped forward, placing his flowers on said grave, and smiled at Remus’s name. Then he spoke to the grave, something he had been known to do, usually when alone. “See, he’s going to have plenty of family, and know that his father loved him,” he mumbled to himself and the gravestone, but still audibly enough.   
  
He stood back up properly and looked at the mother and son for a moment. “Snape was a friend of your family, and all; what was he like-... I mean, I know he didn’t share the views of purebloods, and I-... there’s no real nice way of saying it, sorry. I’m just wondering what he was like, is all. I mean, to people he wasn’t consciously trying to demonize himself in front of.” That hadn’t been his smoothest exchange as of lately, but in between exhausting Court trials and his work, he thought he could cut himself some slack in political correctness, or at least so he hoped. Besides, there wasn’t really anything he could say without bringing attention to the fact that Severus Snape had been faking so very much of who he supposedly was.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He watched Draco leave with his mother, and for a moment, he almost felt as he was watching a child smile shyly at him, being pulled away from him by a grown up. It wasn’t a memory, it was something his mind was making up, a false comfort of how things could have been. He’d likely be pulled away himself by his Godfather Sirius, who would never have been sent to Azkaban, and thus would have adopted him, and the children would be confused to the parents’ animosity towards one another, but therefore even more determined to meet again.

**Draco Malfoy:** **  
**Draco walked up to the grave, and stopped next to Harry, silently reading the inscription of the gravestone. Narcissa stayed a little behind them, seemingly rather lost in trying to figure out how to write a letter to her long distance sister. Draco knelt down and placed the flowers on the grave, feeling emotions well up in his throat and chest, making it hard to remain collected. He breathed through his nose and out his mouth, while playing with his scarf, as to try and distract himself enough to not let the emotions escape from within him. 

To his surprise, Harry Potter spoke up, effectively providing a very welcome distraction from the thoughts inside of his head. Draco turned his attention towards the man, as did Narcissa behind them. Potter was right, that really had not been anything close to a pleasant way of voicing his question, but of all the faults Harry Potter was guilty of, formulating a very hard question wasn’t too big of a crime. At least not when you were as nutorious of an awkwardness-criminal as Potter was. 

Mother and son looked at each other, and Narcissa began speaking. “He always seemed just a little distant.” She began, thinking back to what the teenager had been like back in school. “I never really noticed him at first, he was not speaking to anybody, and would much rather be alone and read. He had no interest in sports, but he was fiercely intelligent, that much was easy to see. At the age of eleven, he knew more curses and hexes than most of the seventh year students. I remember him being a little more lively when he started, but as the years continued on, he got more and more quiet and reserved. He and Lucius got along well, Lucius was the one who recommended him to the slughorn club, but he declined the offer, for unknown reasons. I never knew him during those years, and I never asked Lucius too much about him, yet when my husband did speak of the man, it was always with great respect. I knew that he was loyal to his friends, which was why I trusted him to be able to save Draco when he was in trouble.” She stopped, nodding with a sad look on her face. 

“In hindsight, it was very clear that he was being targeted by Potter and my cousin, and exposed to a collection of cruel pranks and spells. It is shameful to admit, but I did nothing, due to not wanting to make an enemy out of Sirius, as he was terrifying back in those days. When I had the chance, I did encourage Snape to remain with members of his own house as to keep him safe.” The woman’s eyes were no longer looking at the two young men, she was looking back through time, clearly conflicted about her own behavior. 

As his mother was lost in thought, Draco spoke up instead, as he stared at Snape’s name on the gravestone. “I… thought I knew him. However, I get the feeling that I never really did, even more so after reading that letter…” He stopped, trying to gather his thoughts. “Uhm, I guess, in hindsight, he always seemed to be looking to the future, and he always looked like he was somehow longing for something. Not like he was sad, but as if regrets had piled up for so long that they had turned his insides to stone, and all that was left was his mind, which was always busy thinking everything over in excruciating detail.”

“It wasn’t that he was kind, I don’t think I could have ever called him kind.” Draco continued, watching as the wind made the pedals of his flowers sway on top of the grave. “But he understood. I know that people were always talking about him favorising Slytherin for various reasons, but we really couldn’t get away with things. He would always make sure we knew that we were guilty of something, and push us to be better, if we really stepped over the line. He gave us a lot of points in that silly House Cup tournament, which I now think he did to encourage us to not give up on behaving respectably. When a student was particularly struggling, he would invite them to his office and create studying plans with them, not that I ever needed that, but Crabbe and Goyle did. He was also very keen on making sure that the Slytherin students knew that we weren’t evil, or hopeless. You remember how they were always saying that he had a talent for Dark Arts?” Draco looked at Potter for confirmation, which he got, thus he continued. 

“A lot of Slytherin students do, I assume it’s just something that the sorting hat singles out or… something. A lot of students were scared of it, since the Wizarding World has such a bias against anything of the sort. He made them know that a talent for Dark Arts, such as curses and hexes, didn’t mean that they would automatically become able to cast the Unforgivable curses. Dark Arts and forbidden spells aren’t synonymes, but not a lot of wizards and witches will accept that as a fact.” At this point, Draco couldn’t help but sneer slightly at the other man, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I suppose you know all about what it’s like to be treated badly for having a talent in a disliked subject, being a Parseltongue and all.” 

“To a lot of Slytherins, Snape was our one and only ally in a world that was rejecting us or expecting us to, without fail, be cruel, evil and selfish.” He glanced at his mother, and then back at Harry Potter. “Did that answer any of your questions?” Draco felt his lips curve upwards in a small smile. “I really thought I knew more about him, but as I said, I don’t feel like I knew him at all, these days. He was a good teacher, but he clearly showed favoritism in ways which aren’t really acceptable in school. Then again, most teachers were horrible towards Slytherins, and nobody noticed. Hogwarts is… surprisingly corrupt in a lot of ways that I never thought of as a child.” He shrugged, once more feeling that strong urge to want to return to Hogwarts and become a teacher. A better teacher. A good teacher.

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
The more Harry listened to the two of them speak of Snape, the more he started to feel like the man would remain an enigma for all eternity, because the only people who might as well have truly known him, the man himself included, were all gone.   
  
As Draco was evidently more shaken than himself he reached out to put an arm around the other’s waist, ever so casually. He-... no he couldn’t care less for the fact that the young man’s mother was there, really, he wanted to be there as a support for the other.   
  
Harry wasn’t about to interrupt the two Malfoys speaking of their friends, but afterwards, he sighed very heavily, almost theatrically, but in actuality it was a very genuine sigh.   
  
“It really seems that no one will ever truly know then,” he said, sounding almost defeated.   
  
“For the record, I quite frankly hated his guts. It makes sense though, now that I think of things afterwards. See, I was just a child, after all, and uh, everyone had been so nice to me all of a sudden, that he seemed almost as evil as my aunt’s family.” Harry realised that Mrs. Malfoy might in fact not know any of that and thus settled with an explanation; “let us just say that my aunt’s family are muggles who treated me much alike most families treat their house elves, if not worse. Which is, by the way, why I felt justified to liberate your house elf as a child, very sorry about that little act of mischief.”   
  
“Anyway, Professor Snape was clearly targeting me personally, and I rather quickly figured out that it was because he hated my father, not that I knew why. It wasn’t until the fifth year when he was teaching me how to protect myself from Voldemort invading my mind, that I sort of uh, got mad and attacked him back and sort of experienced what it had been like… I guess I was a little too shocked to process it, but the memories I felt and experienced were so bad, and so very filled with panic and fear that I just sort of-... I guess I started pitying him, and understand more of why he would be uncomfortable with me, especially since I seem to have been causing as much trouble in school as my father and Godfather, back in their schooldays. I think I had more legitimate reasons, given my circumstances, but that’s beside the point.” 

“Still, now I find out that he might not have hated me at all. When I had just well processed that he his hatred, even if a bit misguided, wasn’t means to make him evil, and I had started pitying him for it, I suddenly get to know that he might have faked it all along.” His fingers tightened ever so slightly around Draco’s side. “I guess I should have seen it. He has sort of saved me, while pretending to hate me, over and over so many times. He jumped between us and Remus turned werewolf, he taught me everything I know about keeping people out of my head, tirelessly trying to force me into mastering it, and he alerted the Phoenix Order to save us from Voldemort, when no one else could help us. Those things and well, a lot of other small things I feel like I should have noticed, the evidence kind of pile up. I wonder how hard it really was to pretend to hate me and everyone that much, when he did so much for us, and so much for the Slytherin house.”   
  
“He was my mother’s best friend and I would have wanted to know him, I would have wanted to know more about her, I wish he could have told me-...” 

“I guess it really is sort of a mess, but I am really thankful to him for making Remus happy, and for making the potion to save werewolves, I wish people remembered him for things like that, rather than assisting in Dumbledore’s bloody suicide conspiracy. I really don’t think you should blame yourself in any way for that as Dumbledore had clearly planned for it in the first place, and I shouldn’t have doubted him and Snape… sorry for following you about like that, during that year.”   
  
Harry tensed up, he knew he was speaking to Draco, and not necessarily Narcissa, but he looked back for just a moment to observe the woman’s reactions. It had felt a little good to spill all of that to people who didn’t have a bias against Snape, and didn’t hate him from the start. Everything he said felt like it was turned into a confused blur, but then again that would make it match his emotional state, he supposed. 

  
  
**Draco Malfoy:**   
Draco was more than a little flattered to have had the other’s arm put around him, but he would deny that he was with fierce determination. The arm felt good, it felt safe, and the warmth was very welcome as it shielded him from a little of the cold of autumn. He tried to not react visibly, as he was nervous over what his mother might think of him if she noticed that he was either happy with the closeness or uncomfortable with her watching it. Nonetheless, Draco liked the touch, and he liked the show of affection behind the touch. 

Potter began speaking, and Draco would quickly notice that the grip around him varied in strength depending on how stressed or uncomfortable the other man was with the subject he was currently speaking about. Narcissa listened in silence as well, every now and then glancing at the arm around her son as if she was more confused by it than she was bothered. The woman frowned at the mentioning of House-elf, and Draco got the feeling that she had just been reminded of something which she did not want to recall. Draco would soon come to learn the reason as to why she looked displeased. 

“You… freed Dobby?” The former Slytherin asked, looking from his mother to his trapper, clearly confused. Had this been a year ago, he would have been much more angry with the whole ordeal but at this point, at least for now, he had resigned to subtle confusion. 

Narcissa shook her head, which meant that she would address it later, and Harry Potter gave him that maniac grin of his. Draco opted to ask more about the Dobby incident later. 

Mother and son remained silent until Potter had finished speaking about his relationship with Snape, his father’s friends and Snape, and all the things the former Potions Professor had done to protect The-Boy-Who-Lived. It was a little hard to believe for both of them, and Narcissa almost bit her lower lip in trying to keep herself from asking about the alleged werewolf attack, but she was not as tactless as to ask it when standing in front of said werewolf’s grave. On the other hand, the son’s cheeks were red as he was squeezed by the somewhat fired up Potter, as he considered if he wanted to touch the other back or not. 

The topic shifted to Dumbledore and his death, causing both Malfoys to avoid eye contact with the black haired man. Draco felt horrible thinking about it, for a myriad of reasons, and he would rather not think about it. Thus, he was rather satisfied, if not entirely pleased,when the situation switched to the way Harry Potter had stalked him for that entire year, until it culminated in the other man casting a spell which would have killed him, had Snape not showed up. He still had scars from the attack, but luckily, the one on his face had been able to be removed with magic. The former Slytherin shuddered as he imagined the feeling of bleeding out, as the cold claws of death gripped and tore at his body and mind. 

Draco hesitated, staring down at the ground as he tried to keep himself from remembering the experience of nearly dying. His hand moved up, placing it over his stomach, which had gotten the worst of the impact from the spell, thus being the place where he was scarred the worst. In the end, he moved his other hand, and carefully placed it on top of the former Gryffindor’s cold fingers, finally deciding that he actually wanted to touch the other back. “It’s alright.” He confirmed in a small voice. 

Narcissa spoke up, calling both young men’s attention to her. “Draco, we really should be heading home at this point. There is a lot to do back there, and we definitely need to talk about a few things.” She put emphasis on the word things, making her son glance nervously at the man next to him. She held out her hand for her son to grab, and he reluctantly freed himself from Potter’s grip. 

“I will come to your home tomorrow, so that we can visit the boy.” Draco confirmed towards Harry Potter, as he took his mother’s hand. He could feel from her grip that she had quite a lot to say to him when they were in private. He smiled just a little nervously at the other man, and waved his hand in a more than awkward gesture. “...See you, Potter.” 

Narcissa, who was now allowed to use magic freely, made sure that they were safe from view, and then apparated herself and her son straight back to the Malfoy manor. The woman hugged him one more time, this time, she broke down in tears of happiness from being able to hold her child again. Draco couldn’t hold back his tears either, and hugged her back with all his might. 

When both mother and son had managed to catch themselves again, and after Narcissa had made them both giant cups of hot chocolate, the two Malfoys sat down to talk. They weren’t exactly able to speak about the future for certain, but there were quite a few things that they needed to address and discuss, in regards to where things would go from there, Lucius Malfoy’s imprisonment, Teddy Lupin, Andromeda Tonks, and of course, Harry Potter. Narcissa was very keen on having a discussion about the Man-Who-Killed-Voldemort. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Harry really couldn’t help but grin when he surprised Draco with his twelve year old’s self apparent ability to fool a powerful wizard into losing his house elf. That too, was probably one of his more brilliant moments. He very much wanted to ask Draco about that later, perhaps explain himself, and see if the young man remembered any specific reaction from his father.   
  
Although, by the end of everything he had said, he wasn’t smiling anymore, even if he felt somehow relieved to have said all those things to someone who was technically more on Snape’s side than not. He felt like he should be embarrassed about most of what he said, but he really didn’t have the energy for that.   
  
When he thought about Draco and Dumbledore’s planned suicide, Harry realised that he really should spend the last few days before the trial actually gathering up the evidence of a few things-... well, after he had seen Teddy, together with Draco, that was. The Wizarding Court was absolutely impossible to deal with sometimes, and someone would definitely try to say something incredibly stupid but manipulative, that would sway wizards and witches because they don’t learn actual rhetorics and politics; it was jarring how many highly regarded wizards and witches would believe in something simply because it was said in a believable way. Harry had tried not to resort to that sort of thing, but had to do it on a few occasions, he’d much rather find proof. Lucky for him, there was always Dumbledore’s Pensieve; seemingly, the man was prepared for a world that would question everything after his death.   
  
Harry had never found comfort in relying on memories as proof. He recalled one time in school, muggle school, when they had a visit from the local Police Station and Fire Department, talking about safety, and a lot of different risks, with the children. Somehow one of the exercises had gotten stuck with him, as a clear memory, ironically enough, because he always thought back to it whenever people were asked to extract memories as proof. The Police Officer had gotten one of the school’s teachers to dress up differently from usual, and had him storm into the classroom in the middle of her talk with the children, throw two pillows at her, pick them up hastily, and leave. The teacher had yelled a thing or two as well, but Harry couldn’t for the life of him remember what it had been, which had sort of been the point, really.   
  
The exercise was to show the children how hard it was to actually recite something accurately out of memory, especially during sudden interactions, shocks, emotional experiences and similar. Thus, the Police officer had the children try to report back to her what had actually happened, what the teacher had looked like, what he had said, and what the objects he had thrown looked like. In the end, the children barely got half of the information right.   
  
Memories weren’t accurate or objectively shown, they were always biased after a person’s reference of people and happenings, and to add to it, people blocked information and memories changed with time, and got mixed together; his experiences with Professor Slughorn had really proven that in itself, that a memory could be falsified out of pure fear or denial. 

A warm hand, well probably cold but warmer than him, and thus he was brought out of his thoughts. He looked up at Draco who looked sort of shaken, but was smiling at him.   
  
_ “It’s alright.” _   
  
Oh right, he suddenly recalled what he had said to the other. Well, it wasn’t what he should be apologising for, what he really should apologise for was nearly getting the young man killed-... but that probably marked the limit of how much he was prepared to state in front of Mrs. Malfoy. While Harry did feel pretty horrible about that, he also knew that it was a spell cast out of ignorance by a child, he had been a child back then, especially since he understood so little of magic. He had never intended on hurting Draco as such, at least not cut him up like that, and he certainly wanted to have a talk with Professor Snape, about the man’s teenage self considering it an appropriate spell against ‘enemies,’ too bad he couldn’t. 

_ “Draco, we really should be heading home at this point. There is a lot to do back there, and we definitely need to talk about a few things.” _

Damnit, it had felt rather good to be that close to the other, as they were gazing down on the gravestone of people that had respectively meant a lot to them, and Harry didn’t really want to leave Draco’s side. If the two men, finally resting in peace together, after having been on opposing sides of the war for most of their days, could still love each other, Harry wouldn’t find it one bit impossible that he and Draco could be friends, he almost felt obliged to try. While Snape had never, to his recent knowledge, been sharing the views of Death Eaters, the whole scenario could be turned to how he could forgive and be with a man who had let him be bullied so very horribly. Harry and Draco were more equal, they had both made mistakes, both targeted one another, both despised on another; it shouldn’t be too hard.   
  
He watched Draco leave with his mother, and for a moment, he almost felt as he was watching a child smile shyly at him, being pulled away from him by a grown up. It wasn’t a memory, it was something his mind was making up, a false comfort of how things could have been. He’d likely be pulled away himself by his Godfather Sirius, who would never have been sent to Azkaban, and thus would have adopted him, and the children would be confused to the parents’ animosity towards one another, but therefore even more determined to meet again. It wasn’t a memory, and it was a little dangerous to get too caught up in what could have been; he didn’t want to end up like Slughorn, denying reality.   
  
For quite some time longer he lingered, speaking a bit of nonsense to the gravestones, telling them of his recent experiences with the Malfoys, including Tonks in his conversation too, before he headed home again, alone.   
  
Harry had made sure to contact Molly Weasley over the evening, to prepare for the upcoming day’s visit, and to force himself to eat something, when his doorbell rang again, and thus he went and opened it, not prepared in the slightest for what waited on the other side of the door.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Narcissa Malfoy had smiled, and Draco could almost see the family resemblance in her and Harry Bla- Potter’s grins. “My son, you bite into him, and you hold on tight.” 

**Draco Malfoy: **   
The door opened up before him, and this time, Draco stepped inside without waiting to be allowed to, confirming once and for all that he was in fact not a vampire. The evening air was cold enough that he was trembling, despite being dressed what had seemed like perfectly warm clothes. Over his shoulder hung a bag, which unknown to his once again host was filled with things which would make another sleepover easier. Draco pulled the door shut, and turned to Harry Potter without any evident shame for invading his house. He looked up at the other man, who was giving him a confused look; Draco had almost expected the maniac grin which he had grown surprisingly used to, for only having seen a few times the previous day. 

“I know I said I would show up tomorrow, but it seemed so much easier to simply stay over one more night before the meeting with… Theodore? No, just Teddy? Mn.” He began pulling his shoes off, placing them next to the door in a very orderly manner. “Besides, Apparition is easier done in the dark, especially when you wish to avoid the notice of Muggles.” The coat came off, and was hung on the coat hanger, standing freely in the entrance hall. “Also, since I have had no opportunity to actually ‘take care of you’ as you claim I have done, I figured I’d have to come over and correct that, as to not have lied to my mother.”

He finished undressing, and picked up his bag again. “I’ve been wanting to try that white tea you apparently have, is my cup still here?” 

Draco followed Potter out in the kitchen, and watched him as he began making tea for him. As he looked at the other man working in the kitchen, he couldn’t help but think back to his previous discussion with his mother. They had spoken of more things, but somehow Draco could only recall the things which had to do with Harry Potter in detail. 

“...And the way he put his arm around you!” Narcissa had said, shaking her head. “How absolutely, positively shameless! Is that how he ensnares them all? Captures the fancy of the public with that maniac grin, I tell you, son, his Godfather was just the same. The smile just melted everyone’s little hearts and let them get away with everything. Truly a marvelous quality, a deadly one. Son, you really must work on your smile, you cannot let Sirius’ adoptive son out-smile you!” She huffed, and in taking a break to drink her chocolate, her son took the opportunity to speak up. 

“I can’t… tell if you are praising Potter or if you’re mad at him…” The younger confessed, sheepishly looking down into his cup. 

“I… am not mad at him, per say, simply a tad… shaken.” The woman confessed, placing her cup down. “You said you went to him to ask him to appeal for your trial, yes?”

“Yes.” Draco confirmed, rather certain that he had answered that question before, and rather certain that Potter might have mentioned it as well. 

“And he said yes to speak in your favor?”

“Yes.” At this point, the word ‘yes’ had started to lose the meaning to him, and he felt redundant having to repeat it so often. 

Narcissa was quiet for a little bit, sipping her chocolate, and then spoke up again. “Well, if you have to pick a half-blood, I suppose the hero of the Wizarding World might be the only acceptable choice.” 

“_ Mother _!”

“Draco, please, he fancies you.”

“That does not mean-”

“Do not lie to your mother. You enjoy his company, don’t you?”

A subtle whine answered her question, to which the woman nodded, and sipped more chocolate. 

“...Do you really think he fancies me?” Draco’s voice was weak when he answered, his cheeks were hotter than his beverage, and he could not stop from squirming slightly in his chair. 

“My dear son, a man does not simply put his arm around you out of sympathy, no, I am quite certain that he fancies you. That, and the fact that he claimed to have taken care of you and being taken care of in return. A lot of men would have a hard time admitting such a thing, and he did so in front of me. Clearly, he is trying to get your attention.” Her eyes suddenly turned black, and she looked at her son with fierce determination. “You must be careful though, seeing as he is the son of Sirius Black,” Narcissa had completely forgotten that Harry Potter was, in fact, James Potter’s son, not Sirius’s. “Back during school days, he would jump into bed with anything with legs, is Potter the same? How were the rumors about him back in school?” The last was a demand. 

Draco, who avoiding pointing out his mother’s misconception about Potter’s parentage shook his head. “He only ever dated Ginny Weasley.” 

“Only?” She snapped back with the force of a whip.

“Y-yes. He liked a girl from Ravenclaw for a while but that sort of fell flat after Cedric Diggory died.” Draco quickly rambled, knowing well that anybody but Narcissa would ask questions as to why he had decently detailed information about Harry Potter’s lovelife. 

“...Mh, then he might just be… acceptable.” 

Draco was silent, staring into his cup, before he spoke up, slowly and weakly. “If I’m sent to Azkaban in a few days… What am I supposed to do then? Potter might not be able to actually get me out of that mess…” 

His mother put down her cup, and held out her arms, letting her son sit next to her with his head on her shoulder, as she hugged him, stroking over his back. “Draco, you’re innocent. You have not cast any forbidden spells, you have killed no one, and you were but a child forced into these events. Potter will undoubtedly be able to get you out of this.” She held him tight, as if the power of her embrace could save her son from the harsh world around them. 

Draco swallowed. “...He, that is, Potter, looks rather… decent when he is this scruffy. I didn’t think that was possible.” He admitted. 

“You think so? Why, I think he almost looked more decent when I was asked to confirm if he was dead.” 

“...Maybe it just feels… new. Maybe, just a little… exciting?” 

“...If you plan on keeping him, he must trim his beard before coming over for dinners. I can accept scruff for tea, but not dinner.” 

“_ Mother _. I can’t keep him, that’s not how these things work!”

“Oh son, if you want him, you have to take the chance to grab him. I would not encourage this behavior if I did not think you actually had a chance, or if you truly loathed each other.” 

“You mean to say that I should try before giving up?” 

Narcissa Malfoy had smiled, and Draco could almost see the family resemblance in her and Harry Bla- Potter’s grins. “My son, you bite into him, and you hold on tight.” 

Draco realized he had been staring at Potter’s neck, thinking about what his mother had said in regards to the other man liking him back. When the water was boiling, he stepped up to the other, entered Potter’s personal space, and looked into his eyes. For a while they just stood like that, looking at one another, pale eyes meeting green. Behind them, the water on the stove made a weak noise, Chubby the Unicup was staring into the wall with its unseeing eyes and stupid, happy smile, and Draco Malfoy reached up, placing a finger on Harry Potter’s lips, one that traveled over his face, stroking the man’s hair out of his face. _Bite into him._ “Harry,” _Hold on tight._ “kiss me.” 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
In through his door stepped none other than Draco Malfoy, acting much more himself than he had the previous night. How could Harry tell that Draco was feeling more like himself again; it was a very simple matter. Under any form of normal circumstances, Draco Malfoy would be forward to a point of almost stepping over the line, but most of all, he would speak for others before they actually had a chance to answer. Well, the furthermost proof was that he had claimed the unicorn teacup for himself. Harry really wasn’t about to argue, he knew that he could if a time for argument was needed, but it felt comfortable to have the other be clear with his intentions.   
  
Once the initial confusion settled, he was really happy that Draco had decided to show up, and tried very hard to hold back the laughter, when his house invader was giving numerous excuses to why it would be perfectly normal for him of all people to spend another night with Harry.   
  
“Alright,” he stated, the grin finally spreading over his lips. “Really, I’ll revel in any proof I get that you can take care of me, Draco.” It was a little closer to the type of bantering and insults they had thrown at one another in the past, except that it had an entirely different meaning. He was giving Draco a chance to step up and prove himself in that they could be friends, or more, he supposed he really had to give that at least one thought or two, but he primarily meant friends. Besides, there was no real proof that the other would want anything more than friendship and comfort, they were both in a pretty bad state, and hence pretty needy; Harry really didn’t want to assume anything.   
  
Since Draco had apparently decided to keep the unicorn teacup of his own, Harry saw to cleaning it, and started making new tea.   
  
Really though-... Harry had sort of imagined that being involved with Draco would be harder to imagine altogether. He was raised a muggle, and well, the idea of being attracted to a man seemed kind of far fetched to him, well any man who wasn’t Neville Longbottom because the boy sure had grown into himself as a man-... damn; everyone knew he had become very attractive, everyone were a little bit attracted to Neville. Alright, that was beside the point. Anyway, it was new to Harry, he hadn’t really had too much of a time to be attracted to or crushing on people, and the people he had been attracted to had been girls. Muggle culture had just made him sort of believe that there was some sort of boundary, something that would prevent him for finding guys attractive, but there really wasn’t. While he was waiting for the kettle to boil, Harry realised that there really wasn’t a difference, Draco was just a person, and everything would feel a bit strange when it was the first time. He-... okay now he had gone too far, thinking about the possibilities of something that wasn’t likely to happen. Point was, wizards and witches didn’t care, and thus he shouldn’t either; in practice, nothing bad or strange happened, there was no danger in being attracted to a person of a different gender than he was used to. 

Fine, alright, maybe Draco was attractive, and that was why he was thinking so much about it-... In his defense, he would still claim teenage hormones, an excuse he would keep using until he turned twenty. It wasn’t his fault that the whole scenario seemed like it could turn into something teenagers fantasised about. 

Suddenly, Draco had gotten up and entered his personal space, which of course had resulted in Harry turning towards him, and he was about to ask what the other wanted, but realized that he had sort of lost his ability to speak, eh, temporarily, probably, just, uh. His mouth opened to speak, but closed again, and instead a silence lingered between the two. The blond young man that was almost up in his face at that point looked awfully determined.   
  
The other’s fingertips against his lips sent shivers through his body, mostly because Harry realised that he was holding his breath in some sort of anticipation, and the anticipation was strong enough to make his body tingle ever so slightly. He breathed out slowly as the other touched his face, trying to read the other’s eyes, trying to understand what he wanted. Harry couldn’t possibly be mistaken, Draco had to be thinking of the same thing as h-...   
  
_ “Harry, kiss me.” _   
  
Harry definitely would claim teenage hormones in defense of the shiver that ran through his body. He found rather immediately that he was more anxious than he’d like to think; a lot of anxieties welled up inside of him. He knew how downright miserable he was, and a lot of ‘what ifs’ entered his mind, some far more ridiculous than others. Still, he wanted to be kissed; kissing none other than Draco Malfoy himself was exciting. He had thought last night how he would enjoy just letting himself feel pleasure, how he shouldn’t worry-... it was just a little more awkward and nerve wrecking in practice, he had barely figured out dating and intimacy as it was-... 

Not wanting to show how nervous he was, he grinned.  
  
“Kiss you? I thought you were saying you would take care of me,” he teased the other, hoping Draco could take a hint. 

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
The fear of rejection was something completely alien to Draco Malfoy. 

No one had ever refused him, at least not in the attracted-to-one-another sense. Draco had always been somebody who was considered out of reach for people, due to his blood and his family, as well as said family’s wealth. If he was interested in somebody, that is to say, his limits reached the Slytherin House borders, they were always overwhelmed and happy with his approach, and would not hesitate to admit themselves to be attracted to him. As he demanded to be kissed by Harry Potter, he was painfully aware that the man might in fact reject him, despite all his mother had assured him of. 

Then came the answer, and the man let out a breath he had not known that he had been holding, as he looked down on the slightly shorter man. It wasn’t a rejection, it was an invitation. Now, answering a demand with an invitation couldn’t be considered very polite, but he was relieved enough to allow it to slide for the moment. 

A small smirk spread over his lips, his eyes lighting up with a shine of mischief. Potter was challenging him, nevermind that it was most likely done out of inexperience, the other man was challenging him nonetheless, and Draco was absolutely certain that he had more experience than the former Gryffindor, by a long shot. He pulled his hand from the other’s hair and placed it under his scruffy chin, softly lifting the man’s head up as he smirked at him still. “Well, if you’re too nervous, I suppose I will guide you through it.” He saw Potter’s eyes waver just a little, or at least he imagined he did. Draco took that as a sign that he had hit the nail on the head, and had confirmed that the other man was more inexperienced than he was. 

Draco leaned in, and with Potter’s back against the counter, he pushed their lips together in a kiss. At first, their lips touched slightly, their skin just barely brushing against the other’s, hot breath dancing experimentally in the air around their lips. Then, the lips met, carefully at first, before more and more came into contact with the other, until they fully connected. For a moment they were both rather still, but that contact wasn’t long lasting, for neither of them could find enough in just their lips meeting, both hungered for more, and so, the lips parted and tongues rushed out to greet one another, lips and tongues working together in rather good synchronization. Potter wasn’t a bad kisser, he seemed to learn quickly, and so, as the kettle heated the water close to them, the two men continued to kiss, lips and tongues exploring the other. Draco’s hand had moved from the other’s chin to his cheek and down to the man’s neck, carefully stroking over the other’s skin, while the other hand carefully came to rest on Harry’s hip, the thumb resting by the edge of the pants, just close enough to be easily slip under the shirt or past the hem of the man’s pajama pants. 

Draco never wanted the kiss to end, but wishes such as that one were never realistic, and finally, he pulled himself back, looking into the other’s green eyes. Slowly, he began smiling again, feeling more than a little smug over the emotions he could see in Harry’s eyes. 

“...How is that for taking care of you, Potter?” He had meant to say the other’s first name, but had fallen into habits and ended up using the other’s surname instead. Nonetheless, he was more than satisfied with how his kiss had been received with the other man. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Harry would like to think that he was a good kisser, wouldn’t anyone with experience, really. None of the kisses he had shared with Ginny had been particularly bad, and she had sort of guided him into it, seeing that she had dated a few more people than he had, altogether. It just seemed like a sort of act people who had some experience would know how to do, and wouldn’t need to be the slightest nervous about.   
  
Well, Harry had been wrong about a lot of things in life already.   
  
He had believed that kisses would be all the same, more or less, that there wouldn’t be any noticeable difference, there couldn’t be too much variation once one was actually experienced. There really were noticeable differences.   
  
Draco’s kissing was a lot more fluid in motion, and gentler to start with; it was gradual, instead of either soft or hard, Harry had only ever given either hard or soft kisses. He also kissed more adaptively, mouth following the movements of Harry’s lips, looking for and finding opportunities for increased contact, and soft pressure of how the lips were moved, almost massaged against one another. They kissed for-... uh, alright, fine he had no idea how long, he was completely lost in it. However, normally a really forceful kiss would start hurting or straining the lips at some point, and while Harry had to admit that he liked the force in that, this didn’t hurt or tire anyone out, despite being equally passionate. He could almost feel his legs going a little weak, and grabbed the counter behind him, just as a countermeasure. 

Reluctantly, they parted from one another, and Harry was breathing, almost softly panting, through parted lips due to the adrenaline rushing through his body. 

“Woah-...” he breathed out, the more coherent sound a mere whisper. He stared at Draco for a moment before he recalled who he was, what was happening and what they were actually doing. 

_ “...How is that for taking care of you, Potter?” _

Draco certainly sounded pleased with himself. It was sort of sensual when he used that condescending tone of his for something like this, instead of being a little bitch.   
  
“... I don’t know, Draco. You might have to try again, if I am to judge properly.” Alright, how in the world did people do these things without being nervous. He was grinning now too, perfectly aware that his face was flushing up with color, but there wasn’t exactly a point in looking away, it wasn’t like he could hide it. 

He shouldn’t have reason to be nervous, there was nothing wrong in taking what they wanted, if both wanted it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh?” He settled on one idea, allowing himself the pleasure of following up on something slightly reckless. He might only have a few days left of freedom; the idea of stopping himself did not occur to the man who was awaiting his own prosecution. “Haven’t had enough yet then? I wonder how much would be enough for you…”

**Draco Malfoy:** **   
** For once, he was more in his element than Potter was, and it made the blonde man feel more than a little smug about the whole situation. It wasn’t that Draco had been sleeping around with a lot of people, but he had realised that he could pretty much have anybody within Slytherin whom he wanted. After he had come of age, in his own opinion, he had begun to explore what he could do, and what people were actually interested in him. It had been fun, it had made him feel special, made him feel wanted and desired, and all insecurities and fears about not being good enough had been chased away, at least temporarily. 

Crabbe and Goyle had been the perfect first experiments, both of them were too loyal to object to him, and would listen to any order he gave. Then again, he had made sure that they actually wanted it, too. They might not have found him the perfect first partner, but Draco sure had found them very useful for his own entertainment and education, partly because he could trust them not to hurt him despite the difference in physical strength and size. Either way, he didn’t speak of his relationship with those two, especially not after they became Death Eaters and got into their heads that they didn’t have to obey him anymore. Draco couldn’t admit to anyone, not even himself, how frightful it had been to have his goons turn against him, suddenly acting like he was no longer anything but a lakey for them to push around. It had been horrifying, and Draco had experienced the world falling apart around him, with not even Crabbe and Goyle to hold on to in that frightful world of death, betrayal and adulthood. 

It felt good to have his hand in Harry Potter’s hair, to be able to pull and believe that Potter would obey and lean back, or, maybe not obey, but at least not lash out for it, or resist too much. The man was challenging him again, but not with a desire to actually question his authority, instead, Harry wanted him to do more. Without meaning to, Draco felt his own tongue on his lips, as he stared into the green orbs which were the other’s eyes, his own ablaze with the fire of confidence; Harry Potter himself was quivering at the edge of his fingertips, flush with embarrassment over Draco’s kisses. The blonde felt his head swim with ideas, some of the more daring than others. 

“Oh?” He settled on one idea, allowing himself the pleasure of following up on something slightly reckless. He might only have a few days left of freedom; the idea of stopping himself did not occur to the man who was awaiting his own prosecution. “Haven’t had enough yet then? I wonder how much would be enough for you…” He added, as the hand on Harry’s hip pushed under his shirt, slowly, teasingly moving over the right side of the other man’s stomach. He could feel the other draw a breath as they touched one another skin to skin, not just hand to hand or lips to lips. 

Draco grabbed Harry’s hair, and slowly, gently guided his head back, so that he could lean in and carefully kiss up the man’s neck, towards his ear. Had this not been their first bodily encounter, he would have been rougher with both his grip and bit down instead of kissing oh so gently. However, he didn’t actually know Potter’s limits, thus hesitated in pulling him into something he wasn’t ready for, yet.

His lips reached Harry’s ear, and after gently nibbling the lobe, he stopped and breathed carefully into the ear itself, before speaking in his softest tone of voice. “I wonder,” he repeated, still whispering into Harry’s ear, “What would be enough for you?” As he voiced the question, he allowed his other hand to slide lower, this time passing over the hem to the other’s pants, softly making a very clear suggestion that the other man might be wanting more than just having bodily contact by means of kissing. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
The little control he thought he had managed to regain over himself was starting to slip right through his fingers, when he was grabbed by Draco, and felt wet, warm lips against his neck, not to mention the somewhat cold hand against his chest. He-... wow, okay. Ginny had been forward but never this forward. He-... he liked it, he liked it a lot, actually.   
  
He wanted to touch back, itched to do something, but found rather quickly that thought process was rather quickly hindered when his brains turned to jelly. Hm, that was a bit of a problem.    
  
“Hha-...! Bloody Hell, Draco-... how long have you wanted to do this, exactly?” His grin was wider than before, even if he couldn’t see the other’s face when Draco was right next to his ear. The tone of his voice very much implied that he was thinking it wasn’t just a mere impulse.    
  
Harry couldn’t help but to laugh, probably breaking off some of the sexual tension that had been built up but he really, really couldn’t hold it back. He was nervous, he was absolutely certainly aroused, and it had been achieved by the last person he would have considered would do such a thing to him, in the whole world; okay, not the absolute last, just, the absolute last person on a list of people still relevant, maybe.    
  
He had asked for another kiss, not to be swept off his feet like some sort of romcom movie; it really was funny. 

Harry pulled away from the other, making sure Draco would let go, as he gathered himself a little bit. “Tea water ’s finished. Should I just assume you changed your mind about it?”    
  
He was still leaning against the counter, a little suspicious that he might do something embarrassing, such as losing his balance and stumbling, if he let go.   
  
“This is hands down the weirdest thing to have ever happened to me, and Hermione and I went back in time-...” he admitted, heaving out a somewhat shaky sigh.    
  
Right, so, apparently Draco had some sort of secret mastery of sensual behaviour and touches, meaning that Harry rather quickly had to decide whether he wanted to continue or, well, he didn’t know, maybe bloody get to know the other first. Harry really had thought that he could do that sort of thing with anyone if both were willing, but rather quickly found that he was a bit weirded out by the idea itself, nervous if he had to admit that he was.   
  
He had avoided eye contact with Draco for a few moments, but finally looked at the other, his eyes reflected interest, amusement and most certainly nerves. He reached out, put an arm around Draco’s waist and pulled him closer. “I-... Dammit, I don’t know ‘how much’ I want right now, just for the record, but I definitely don’t want you to stop with what you were just doing.” He should take the chance, he wanted to. Besides, he was technically a responsible adult who could make his own decisions and all that; he really did not want to pass up on the opportunity, consequences be damned.    
  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**

Harry suddenly started laughing, and while that did take Draco off guard, he found that it wasn’t hard to laugh along with the other man. Had this been a few years prior, he would have been horrified to have somebody laugh at him when he had tried very hard to be seductive, but somehow, it wasn’t really that big of a problem, it was simply, well fun. Unbeknownst to Draco, the reason as to why it was easy to laugh alongside the other, and not the world shattering embarrassment it would have been with another person, was because he was actually comfortable with the other man. Harry had seen him at his absolute worst, and there was basically nothing left to be embarrassed about. Not to mention that the other man had already accepted him at his worst, without thinking less of him as a person due to it, so what would it matter if he didn’t manage to say exactly the words which would make Harry’s legs weak? 

“I don’t know, Potter.” He responded, leaning back to look at his face. The other made an effort to be freed and like any sensible person, Draco let go and straightened up, removing his hands from the positions they had been in, and stood up, facing the man with a smile. “Maybe since yesterday, maybe it came over me now, I suppose you shall never know.” 

Harry started talking about tea, causing Draco to look over at it. Drinking tea would undoubtedly get him away from his current goal, and such, he reached over and pulled the kettle off the stove, putting it to the side, while also turning off the stove. Next to him, the other man continued talking, mentioning something about going back in time. Draco stared at him, trying to somehow read his face to figure out if the other man was joking or not. It didn’t seem like he was, and that, if anything, was bothering Draco even more. The former Slytherin made a very firm note of asking Harry Potter about his traveling through time at a later date.

The former Gryffindor reached out and pulled him closer, making Draco almost stumble over the other’s feet, which were sprawled out as if Draco was supposed to fall over them. He didn’t, however, and straightened up again, meeting Potter’s eyes as the other confessed to wanting more, all while the green eyes communicated interest, amusement and nervosity. 

“Very well then, I will just have to trust that you will tell me to stop if you feel that I’m going too far.” 

Perhaps, just perhaps, Draco’s lips curled into an ever so slightly predatory smile. He reached out and grabbed Harry’s wrist, afterwards began pulling him towards the bathroom with the shower, located upstairs. Draco had discovered it in the morning, when he went to the bathroom after waking up. 

When it came to dicks, they had a tendency to get rather dirty, not only because of their other function, but because they were long objects who got sweaty while resting against fabric. Draco had no intention of putting anything unclean into his mouth, so he showed towards the shower, giving the other man a light slap on the bum. “I highly doubt you’re as clean as I want you to be, why don’t you undress and step inside?” 

He stepped back from the other man, feeling his heart beat almost painfully fast in his chest. Draco had little to no pleasure for the last year and a half, and he was positively starved for sexual contact. That did not mean that he was calm when it came to having sex with somebody whom he barely knew, for that, he was more than nervous, but he tried very hard not to show it. Not to mention that being naked with Harry Potter of all people was… not an experience he had expected to be caught up in anytime soon. 

Draco began undressing too, he stopped, however, and reached out to turn off the lights, leaving only the light from the bathroom window to shine in. He did not do it because he was nervous, but because he did not want the other man to stop and feel guilty when he saw the scars over Draco’s torso and legs. Potter would have to feel guilty about that some other time, it was not going to ruin his fun this evening. 

After he was done undressing, he slid inside the shower next to the other man, whose face he could still make out in the dark of the room. He placed a hand on the other’s chest, giving him a somewhat triumphant grin. “Do you have any lube or oils? I am not accepting shampoo or soap for this, so I’ll have you go get something acceptable before we start.” 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Thus far, Harry felt very encouraged to continue. Draco wasn’t a threat to him, and he added the young man’s comment about wanting him to speak up if there was something he didn’t want to his newly made mental list of positive qualities Draco possessed; the list was increasing by the minute.    
  
He felt it necessary to actually consider those traits properly, and to make mental lists; he really hadn’t given Draco a chance in any of his school years, and hadn’t hesitated to make fun of the other, just as the other would have behaved around him.   
  
See, Harry had never truly been bullied by other wizards and witches. At worst, he had been excluded and frozen out due to various reasons of his so called ‘destiny,’ especially in times when they doubted whether Voldemort had returned, or that time they thought he was the Heir of Slytherin. He had never felt like he was a victim by other children, and after discovering that he was a wizard, he was more than capable of protecting himself against bullying; his enemies had been scarier, stronger, and well, mostly Death Eaters; there weren’t a lot of things children could do in comparison to terrifying dark wizards and witches, or actual monstrosities. 

It wasn’t until he had invaded Professor Snape’s head, until he had first handedly experienced the fear of someone terrified of what magic can do to hurt them, from a teenager who knew well what could be done, and had experienced the damage and humiliation it could do, that he had reconsidered a lot of his actions in the past. Perhaps it all boiled down to self value, given how he had been treated as a child, he didn’t have much of a dignity to lose in the first place, still didn’t really. He had never personally experienced the feeling that something embarrassing would be the end of the world, and hadn’t feared the aftermath that much, mostly because he was so used to the aftermath that he knew the fact that the world would keep on spinning, and his life would move on. He was damaged beyond taking more damage from bullying at that point, which wasn’t a good thing, and it had also made him careless, and perhaps he had risked being a bit of a bully too, lucky to not really have been, in the end.    
  
He-... really didn’t want to be like his dad and Sirius had been towards people they disliked, as teenagers. He expected someone like Draco to be hurt, mortified and probably feel as badly as Snape had felt about being humiliated in front of people, and Harry had always laughed, always encouraged it, always avoided to think of the consequences just because Draco was someone he disliked. Therefore, he really couldn’t call himself better than Draco, not as a person. Even if Draco had in most cases been the cause of his own misery, it wasn’t like Harry hadn’t enjoyed it. Perhaps he felt a little bit guilty and responsible too, for Draco having felt the need to prove himself so much, and well, not that he’d blame himself completely, but he was probably a bit of a part of forcing the worst out of the blonde, during their years at Hogwarts.    
  
They were apparently heading into the shower, which seemed like a splendid idea really, because it had been two days since his last shower, and he probably was kind of sweaty as it was. He gathered himself by taking a deep breath, which hitched ever so slightly as Draco slapped his butt.    
  
“Eh sure,” he responded, kind of sheepishly, but still with a grin. He began undressing, as did the other, and apparently Draco wanted them to shower in the dark. That was-... hot, in lack of better description. He wasn’t that ashamed of himself or his looks, not more than any other person, probably less as he lacked all dignity, but it felt a little good to have both of them stumble about in the dark, especially so as Draco was clearly more experienced in the current aspect than Harry. It wasn’t entirely dark, but it was almost entirely dark outside, leaving very little light coming through the window. 

They both stepped inside the shower and Harry’s entire body was tingling with anticipation. The whole scenario felt exciting, it felt mischievous, it felt like both of them could do a little bit of whatever they wanted without much consequences, because none of them had bad intentions. He was about to remove his glasses when the other asked for lubrication, and Harry realised that he should probably head to the bedroom and get his wand, which would make everything, including transfiguration of water into lube, a lot easier.    
  
On his way out, he saw to aim well, and placed a rather good and loud smack on Draco’s naked butt, not that he had hit the other particularly hard. He grinned and left for his wand, not minding walking about naked in his own house.    
  
Within just a minute, he returned, and he might’ve just opened the door completely, unnecessarily, on his way inside, to have some light illuminating the young man waiting for him, just to be able to see him properly, if only for a moment. 

  
He caught a glimpse of Draco’s pale skin, and the very pleasant shape of the young man’s hips leading down into a butt that looked somewhat heart shaped. Draco also looked-... well stronger and more masculine than he had expected. The man was lean altogether, and looked ever so slightly malnourished perhaps, but somehow Harry had always imagined him lankier under all those clothes, perhaps to match his personality of someone pretending to be bigger than he is.    
  
He didn’t linger for long; now that he had a glance, he very much wanted to touch as well.    
  
However, when he closed the door behind himself he very quickly noticed that he became momentarily blind, because his eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness of the bathroom. Well more blind than usual, since he proceeded to remove his glasses, where darkness made things very hard to make out with his poor sight. He felt his way forward carefully, and placed his wand and glasses on the porcelain sink, before joining Draco again. He accidentally buffed into the other’s shoulder, and then reached out to try to find the other’s waist again. He very quickly found that he liked the other’s hips, they were defined, easily grabbed, and not even a little bit sharp or bony, just soft enough.    
  
He leant forward to capture Draco in his arms, sort of, to be able to feel the other’s ass, which Harry was starting to take very much liking to. He leaned in further, and tried very much to kiss the other again, only just about able to make out shapes in the dark right then, and first accidentally kissed the other’s upper lip, a little off, before he found his way back. Sure it was clumsy, but it was exciting, and he’d be damned if he let himself be too nervous to touch and explore. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco was the first to break the kiss, as he was starting to get more than excited to get to the more satisfying parts. If they did it again, he’d be sure to take the time to really explore and touch, but for now, desperation and hunger for intercourse made it very hard to be satisfied with simple makeouts in the shower.

**Draco Malfoy:**   
As the other man exited the room, Draco hurried to grab the soap, and made sure to wash himself off quickly, around the more easily dirtied parts of the body; that is to say, he turned on the water and made sure to wash around his butthole, and dick. While doing so, he also slipped the upper part of his finger inside himself, just to test how open he was after so many months with nothing but his own fingers to please him. He did so using the soap, knowing fully well that he shouldn’t use soap as a replacement for lube. The anus was very good at absorbing different oils and the like, meaning that there were things in soap and shampoo which could easily be absorbed by the inside of the body, thus making the person sick. Draco would never do such a thing normally, but in this case, with the fear of going to Azkaban looming over him, he decided to be careless, just once. 

Harry quickly returned, and Draco found that the door was opened to send out more light than was needed in the bathroom, it made him almost turn around, but he stayed where he was, in the warm shower, and waited for the other to come join him. Very few people looked bad from behind, and Draco was more than certain that Harry would have nothing to complain about upon viewing his assets from that angle. 

After some stumbling around after closing the door, Harry managed to push himself into the water next to Draco, whose lips had spread into a grin, as his eyes had been perfectly adjusted to the dark by now. He felt how Harry buffed into this shoulder, and then his waist was caught by an eager hand. He couldn’t help but smile wider, judging by the other’s hurry to go back to touching him, Harry was completely fine and eager to get back into having bodily contact with him. Good, Draco never liked the idea of having sexual contact with somebody who was even a little bit reluctant. Who didn’t want to be desired by their partner; who didn’t want to feel like they were desired? Draco for one was more than welcoming any and all attempts to worship him and his body as much as the worshipper wanted, as long as it was all done in a consensual manner. 

The arms around him went for his butt, and he could not hold back from shuddering as he felt the warm hands move of his body. Draco had not quite realised just how touch starved he had been after the months of loneliness, stress and fear. Alright, he had known, he just hadn’t known that it was this bad. 

A clumsy kiss, with appropriate adjustment for the next kiss was applied to his lips, and such, he lifted his arms and laced them around the other man’s neck, returning it. Draco could not even feel ashamed at this point, not for wanting sexual contact or about his body, thus he pressed his whole body against Harry’s, allowing the man to feel just how excited he was from being touched, as his length brushed against the other’s thigh. 

Draco was the first to break the kiss, as he was starting to get more than excited to get to the more satisfying parts. If they did it again, he’d be sure to take the time to really explore and touch, but for now, desperation and hunger for intercourse made it very hard to be satisfied with simple makeouts in the shower.

Thus, Harry was relocated under the water, where Draco didn’t hesitate to touch him. “I hope you forgive my hurry, but seeing as I have apparently been wanting this for days now, I will have to move this cuddling session onto after I’ve had what I want.” Without further ado, he reached out and simply grabbed Harry Potter’s member in his hand. It wasn’t excessively long, and not far too thick, despite being a tad thicker than his own, he noticed to his great excitement that the other had a rather big head, and was overall not curved. It seemed to be more than enough in both length and thickness to satisfy him, and the expectation to have that thick head press into him made the former Slytherin’s legs feel just a bit weak. 

Thus, he wasted little time, he made certain that the other was cleaned, using the water without any soap to complete the task. His hands moved around the shaft, without pushing the foreskin back, with the plan of doing so later, he made sure to also wash of the other’s balls, carefully massaging them in one hand pleased to notice that the shaft in his other hand grow stiffer. Draco hadn’t been sure that his knowledge of how to handle his way around an attractive man’s finer parts would be enough to please Harry Potter, but judging by the noises coming from the man’s lips, he was performing rather well, without being too forceful, and still get somewhere farther than cuddles and kisses. 

When he was quite certain that Harry was more than clean and ready to move on, he nibbled his soon to be lover’s neck, and sank down on his knees in front of him. Somewhere above him, he heard Potter’s breath hitch. Draco carefully and gently nudged the other’s foreskin back, and after washing the newly emerged head off in the water. After which he pulled the other man to a position against the wall which would not include Draco having to figure out how to breathe underwater, he glanced up at the other man, making an attempt to keep eye contact as he parted his mouth and let his tongue move over the head which he was very determined to take in before the day was over. 

The problem with a blowjob was that while it was very nice for the person who was being given one, it was actually rather hard on the person giving it. While it was fun for a while, it tended to lead to a sore jaw if action continued for too long, and if the other person decided to be careless and push their dick too far, it could easily block the throat in such a way which made it impossible to breathe. One also needed to mind their teeth so as to not hurt the other as they went about the sucking. All in all, blowjobs were fun to give, and fun to be given, but there was a lot to think about, and it usually didn’t stay fun for very long. Blowjobs were overall an excellent form of shorter foreplay, but the giver would have to endure discomfort and possible jaw pain if they wanted to continue the foreplay for longer.

As a man who knew all those things very well, Draco held on to the shaft with one hand, while keeping the other busy with the man’s balls, while his lips took the time to properly explore the head, alongside his tongue. It was even more fun than usual, as the man whose finer parts he was pleasuring clearly had never been given a proper blowjob before, judging by the noises he made. Draco made his lips and tongue focus mostly on the head and the front part of the other’s member, while his hands worked the shaft and the man’s balls. Just for this time, he got lost enough in wanting to show Potter just how much he knew on the subject that he forgot to pleasure himself.

  
  


**Harry Potter:** **   
** Were they moving too fast?   
  
Harry almost thought they were until their lips once more pressed together, and his partner saw to pressing his entire body against him, leaving a little to nothing to imagination. 

There were a great deal of things he wasn’t too aware of as they continued. His heart was beating faster than usual, but he didn’t quite notice. He certainly wasn’t aware that water was running along his elbow to splash a great deal more of the bathroom floor than intended, seeing they hadn’t properly closed the shower curtain, which he had entirely forgotten too. He wasn’t aware that his hair was getting long enough to probably get water in Draco’s eyes, had they been open, when they were that close to one another. He was sort of aware that the tiles of the wall chilled his back upon coming in contact with his skin, but even that sensation was arguably lurking in the back of his mind somewhere. 

It wasn’t the first time someone touched him in similar manners, but he had to admit that Draco was very good at it. Briefly, Harry even managed the coherent enough thought trail to realise that the other was multitasking better with his hands than Harry himself imagined he would be able to. 

Draco moved away from him, and proceeded to push Harry about to move him slightly to the side, and away from the water. It took Harry a considerable moment to realise that the other had moved down on his knees, mostly because he couldn’t really see-... and maybe because his eyes had been closed, when he was focusing on feeling every single touch.    


He had tried to keep his voice down, but that was sort of rendered useless when he felt the wetness of his partner’s lips and tongue, in a place far more sensitive than his own lips or neck. He gasped audibly and leaned his head back, finding that a shudder ran through his entire body, making it feel like he should be holding onto something to remain standing, while in reality he’d be able to stand up just fine. 

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:** **   
** Just as he very well knew, the fellatio was getting to his jaw, perhaps even quicker than he remembered from past experiences, thus, he pulled his head back, making sure that the member’s release form his mouth was followed by an audible pop. He did so to make certain the other would realise that he wanted his attention. 

To stop in the middle of something was always just a little awkward, but Draco bit the awkwardness back down and addressed the other man from down on his knees, amused by the other having to look down on him, thus seeing his own erect member as he did. The former Slytherin asked for lube, as there was no bottle with it, he had to halt and ask the other man to make some with the use of magic. After some awkward scuffling and return, Draco gathered water in his hands and the other man transfigured it into something a lot more useful for their purpose. In the faint dark, it was hard not to spill, thus, he tried to ask the other man to hold his dick for him. 

With his lips wrapped around the other’s head once more, Draco carefully lubed his one of his fingers and pressed it inside himself. The intruder was small enough to enter him easily, but he did allow his voice to communicate, without words, that he was touching himself. As a matter of fact, silence tended to make things all the more awkward and strange during sex, everyone wanted to know that their partner felt good or was enjoying themselves, especially in a situation where they couldn’t quite see one another clearly. Draco had been with a few people who thought it was embarrassing to make noises, and he had very much felt the same in the beginning, but now, he knew full well that noises were what made up more than half of most communication during sex, and the least one could do for their partner was to show that one was having a good time.

One finger was followed by another, which quite easily slipped in, followed by a third, which took a little longer to get used to. The problem was never in pushing things inside, the problem was getting used to movement, thus enabling for actual sex. Draco had found that sometimes, fingers were a lot worse to get used to than an actual member. Fingers were hard and rough, sometimes the tips were a little too coarse for comfort. One of the absolute no in sex was long nails. One did not put fingers with longer or sharp nails inside another person. That was beyond irresponsible and dangerous. Draco had found that long nails truly could be a lot shorter than people imagined, as well, and still do damage. 

When Draco felt like he had gotten sufficiently spread, he pulled his head back, and pushed his hands in under the water. As he couldn’t see clearly, he made sure to clean his hands off a little longer, he also gathered some water in his mouth and spit it out, before he rose to his feet. He wasn’t sure if Potter could see him, but he was grinning at him, quite capable of hearing the other’s breath hitching with what he hoped to be excitement. The blonde man leaned in and placed a kiss on the other one’s cheek, nudging him with his nose. “I need some more lube, please. I seem to have run out of it.” He put extra emphasis on the word ‘please’ as he never used it outside of sex, thus trying to create a stark contrast which would hopefully add to the other’s excitement. 

He held out his hand, filled with water, and the spell was cast, leaving him with a little more lube than might be needed. Without hesitation, he pulled the other away from the wall claiming the support of it for his own. The former Slytherin coated the other’s member in the lube, making sure to use mostly all of it to avoid even the smallest risks that the other would hurt him with his size. He used the rest to spread over his opening, once again prefering too much rather than too little. After quickly washing off his hand, he turned his back towards Harry, and placed his free hand on the wall to support himself. With the other hand, he guided the other towards his entrance. 

It was a lot harder to insert something into an anus that one might think, at least something as big as a member. If the other man had been the one to do it, he would have had to shift and push, looking for an entrance which was never quite where he would think it was, not that it moved, obviously, but it wasn’t even half as easy as accessing a vagina. For inexperienced people, it often leads to them using a lot more force than necessary, and when the dick did slip in, it would be too fast and too hard for actual comfort. Draco was not into that pain, being a little roughed up and pounded were both completely fine, but he was having it with insertion pains. That was not something he enjoyed. Thus, Draco made sure to guide the other man’s member inside of him. He knew what angle the other had to enter to make it easy for himself, thus, he steadied the dick, and slowly began pushing. The warm head pushed against his opening, slowly sinking inside of him. It was a little big to his somewhat sexstarved body, but he took it slow. As soon as it had pushed past the outer ring, the rest would be easy. Draco could feel the hair on his legs stand on end as he sank back against the other man’s member, slowly penetrating himself. He whimpered as he felt his buttcheeks on the other man’s thighs, the dick all inside of him. He wasn’t sure when but Harry had grabbed his hips, and the warmth of the hands felt fantastic. 

Draco stood still, both hands on the wall in front of him, as his insides got accustomed to his lover. It felt absolutely wonderful to be completely filled, and Potter was more than patient to allow him to adjust to the amazingly warm, softly pulsing intruder. The blonde man was glad that the other couldn’t see him, as he was sure that just a little drool may have escaped his lips, simply from being so very full after no sexual contact at all for so long. Draco made no illusions about not enjoying being penetrated, he was in fact, very vocal in liking it, even if he didn’t use words to convey it. 

To simply stand still with the member inside of him quickly reached the limits of how much pleasure he could get from it, and Harry had seemingly understood that he needed a little time to adjust to the intruder. Well, that time was now passed, and Draco was positively starving for more. “That feels good.” His voice left him as something between a whine and a purr, and he would have been embarrassed had the dick inside of him not been that warm and pleasant inside of him. “Bloody… ah, it feels good. You can move now, I’ll… I’ll tell you if it hurts…” It was so very hard to speak over his own racing thoughts and rapidly beating heart. At least he had remembered to tell the inexperienced man that he would communicate if they needed to take a break. 

He wanted nothing more than for the other man to fuck him, to make sure that the world around them disappeared, and drown them both in a sea of pleasure, where nothing else mattered but feeling good.

  
  


**Harry Potter:** **   
** Embarrassingly enough for the most famous wizard of the century, it seemed like he was getting off on the rising shame from the noises that were escaping his lips, when his dick was being licked and played with. At first, he had attempted to hold back, and he had almost tried to keep a hand in front of his mouth, but quickly realised that his arms were both very much needed to keep him standing upright.    
  
Draco wasn’t much more than a shadowed blur on the floor in front of him, leaving all of how the naked man would look as he was sucking Harry off to his imagination, imagination which was starting to run wild.    
  
Had Draco always been this attractive-.. hm. It was a strange sort of notion to look back to the last few years and think of the ex-Slytherin student and sort of rival of his as attractive. He hadn’t been thinking that back then, but when he thought back of the other, he felt like the other had been attractive all along.    
  
So maybe, a little bit, he really did have to start considering the fact that he might be crushing on Draco-... Okay nope, let’s just abort that mission, leave it for another day, it was not something his mind was prepared for face, especially not with the dizziness and weakness it made him feel, with the person in question having his mouth wrapped around his erection. 

Harry let out a disappointed whine when Draco pulled away from him with a pop, a sound that sent chills down his abdomen and legs, being far more attractive than he felt such a sound had any right to be. 

The fact that Draco felt awkward about the break of theirs where they readjusted and transfigured lube went completely over Harry’s head, not just because the other was good at hiding it, but because people often forget that the other was likely as embarrassed and nervous as they themselves were; it was even easier to forget when that someone was clearly so very experienced. Draco’s noises just seemed more intentional, well, not faked, but in a sense shameless, as if he was deliberately trying to make his partner further aroused with the noises, and well, if that had been the plan, it was working rather flawlessly. 

Besides, while Harry was almost completely blind to what was happening in the dark, and could only make out the vague blurry shapes, Draco’s noises made him quite aware that the other was touching himself, and the need of lube made the manner of which the other was touching himself rather evident. He was instructed to hold his erection for the other to suck at, and carefully he traced a palm along the wall until he found that he was somewhat steady at least, and abided the other’s instructions. 

Bloody Hell the other was good at fellatio-... and while it felt somehow rude and intrusive to think of how much experience the other must have, it was way too attractive not to think about it. Before Harry knew it, he was already imagining the blonde in a myriad of different sexual scenarios, most of them boiling down to Draco being taken and moaning louder, far more, while being pushed into a whole lot of different positions. The partners were but a shadow in Harry’s mind, all he could see was how he imagined Draco’s expression upon making as needy and pleased noises as the ones he was currently making. He had heard people describe being very turned on as having their blood boil, at some point, he couldn’t recall when, and the heat that stirred up inside of him almost felt like it, as his mind fell deeper into half-coherent fantasies about the other. It felt almost ridiculous to be imagining all those scenarios, as if the current one wasn’t attractive enough, which it very much was. Rather, he was letting himself go, letting his mind run wild to match how aroused he was feeling, which was rather natural, it should be. Most people were thinking of more than the scenario they were in, when feeling sexual pleasure, and thoughts weren’t exactly crimes.    
  
He fell back into letting noises slip, Draco’s behaviour encouraging to start making him enjoy the idea of the other hearing him, almost managing to completely coherently consider that the other must find it attractive too, the way he was eagerly sucking away. In the little pornography he had seen in his days, the focus was always on one individual, that being the woman, and the man wasn’t making any noises. Out of reference, it felt like he should be silently enjoying the pleasure given all the noises Draco was making, as if that was normal. When he was actually standing there, and it was actually happening, it was far more attractive, far more natural, to simply let the noises out, to know how both of them were feeling good, to hear the proof of it echoing against the tiles. There wasn’t any rule that any one of them should have to hold back from pleasure; Harry couldn’t really help but to start moving the hand around his erection, eyes rolling back, as he leaned his head back against the wall and let out a moan that could possibly rival Draco in lack of shame.    
  
The second time he was asked to transfigure more lubrication, it took him a second or so extra time before he even realised he should reach for his wand once more. Draco wasn’t exactly helping by being close to him again, making Harry painfully aware how much his body wanted their skin to connect, and wanted the other closer, despite how good everything up until them had felt. Draco felt warm, very warm, while Harry’s skin had started getting cold from being wet but not remaining under the shower. 

Draco leaned in and begged him to transfigure more lube, so that they could continue. Having the other beg of something stirred-.. .something within, making him realise how much he wanted to make the other beg again, preferably for pleasure rather than a spell.    
  
The notion of wanting to make Draco beg again made it very hard to remain still when the other guided him inside of him. Harry had simply gone along with it, mind too fuzzy to clearly worry about the new experience he was about to have. In the end, it felt almost the same as that of penetrating a vagina, something he thought a little harder about to distract himself from the urge to move, realising that he was squeezed a little harder at the very opening and base, creating a sensation of almost being pulled inside the other, much like someone sucking and creating a vacuum, which almost made his legs go weak.    
  
He couldn’t help but to think that having sex in the shower was brilliant, really, it made everything so easy while they could make whatever mess, without having to think about having to deal it later.    
  
Finally Draco allowed him to move, and so he grabbed the other by the hips rather immediately, and experimentally pulled out until he could feel the ring of muscles struggling ever so slightly to keep the head of his dick remaining inside, and then he pushed back in, not too harshly. Before he knew it, he had let out a moan as loud as the one Draco was letting out. 

There was this notion in the back of the head that the anus was fragile and it was hard to dare letting himself go, in the beginning, something made infinitely easier by Draco very clearly voicing when he wanted Harry to change the pacing of his movements.    
  
It felt incredible, and the cold creeping over his skin almost made him even more sensitive, and made the contrast to the heat inside his partner even more enticing and pleasurable. At first, he kept on increasing the speed of his thrusts until it nearly got painful for the both of them, but very soon realised that it felt equally good, if not even better, to keep at a medium pace where both of them seemed to feel every single movement; it was also helping Harry from ejaculating within the first two minutes, not that he lasted very long, in the end.    
  
After reaching a climax, and burying himself balls deep inside Draco, finally leaning in, to capture the other completely in his embrace, as he was panting softly against the pale skin of the other’s back, Harry rather quickly found that he wanted more. He let the palm of his hands spread over the man’s chest, feeling something a little uneven and strange, but being a little too dizzy to think of it as he was carefully brushing past the other’s nipples instead. “Hha-... can we go one more time? I mean uh, do you want me to?” He honestly had no idea how much someone could take when it came to anal sex, and thought he’d better ask. His hands kept on exploring the other’s chest, rather persistently idly playing with the nipples as awaited an answer.    
  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
When he was younger, Draco had thought that one could really feel the impact of cum, when somebody ejaculated inside of him. That wasn’t entirely true, the numbness which came from having been fucked tended to make it hard to tell when somebody came, it was much more noticeable when one realised the heat of the semen that one could truly feel the cum itself. In short, one mostly felt the cum, not the ejaculation. 

During the sex, Draco had not thought to touch himself. The idea of being able to come from just anal sex was admittedly rather attractive, but it wasn’t especially realistic. Draco had managed it once or twice, but that had taken a lot more than one round, and in the end, it hadn’t really been worth the effort. Draco had simply wanted to focus on the feeling of the other’s movements, he had just wanted to enjoy them for a while before he went on to touch himself. This had resulted in the other man reaching his climax far before the blonde one, and he had been slightly surprised to realise that he had been so satisfied with just being fucked that he had neglected his own member, which ached to be touched. Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he was expecting a second round, he was counting on it. The reason for which was that his first experiences with sex had been with two people, two people whom he had been around for most of his life. It had long since become natural to him to go two rounds, thus he was subconciously holding back from cuming the first time, to make the second round more enjoyable for himself. 

Draco’s legs were shaking, he was panting and gasping, but his whole body felt so very warm and pleasant. Everything felt wonderful, and his brain was telling him that it never, ever wanted this to end. Inside of him, Potter’s dick was pulsing, and his own anus responded by twitching slightly around him. He was not sore at all, continuing would not be a problem, and he was more than thrilled when the other’s hands began exploring his chest. He couldn’t help but buckle back against the dick, burying it deeper inside himself, not wanting it to leave. The other’s eager touches were met by approving moans, and soft buckles back against him. Draco very much approved of the other man being so very vocal as well, it made it very easy to tell when Harry was enjoying himself. The former Slytherin took a lot of pride in knowing that he was able to make someone else feel good enough that they didn’t care about their voice being loud. 

“Oh… ah-nother round, is, ah, it…?” He once more reverted to his sweetest voice, having reached the conclusion that the man inside of him enjoyed that kind of teasing. The gasps and noises of pleasure happened to coincide with his own movements against the dick, he wasn’t trying to gasp too loudly over his nipples being touched, as he found it more erotic to the other if he himself controlled his moans in that instant. “Very well, ah, since you a-a-ahh…” He lost track of his words when the nipples were more or less attacked in the likely effort to make Draco react to it. “You beast… I’m ah, trying to...to… t-ah-lk…” He finally grabbed the other’s hands and pushed them away from himself, then adjusted so that the other’s dick fell out of him. Draco was immediately hit with the desire to push it back in, but he did have other plans.

“Wash yourself off, you will need more lube as well.” He turned and leaned in to nibble the other’s earlobe quickly, fearing that a kiss would remove him from the wonderful sensation of being filled up for longer than he was willing to put up with. 

Draco got back down on his knees, and grabbed the small carpet which had already been rather drenched in water by then. He could see rather well in the dark at this point, meaning that Potter could see him equally well, there was no need to worry that the other couldn’t see where he was or what he was doing. Draco pushed the carpet under his knees, and pulled it far enough behind him to allow another person’s knees to be on it as well. Tiles were awfully hard on the knees and to make the position Draco had in mind work without being too painful, the carpet was a great assistance. 

Having finished, he got down on all four, and then lowered his upper body down to the floor, pushing his rear up as an invitation for the other man. Like this, Draco was more than able to reach his own member, which he was definitely touching this round. “I trust you can tell what position this is.” He teased the man behind him. “Since you’re so eager, and did so well just now, I challenge you to find your way back inside of me.” It was not only because it was easier when he was already open and filled with cum, it was not only because he couldn’t quite reach behind himself and help the other get inside of him from this position, no, the biggest reason he allowed Harry to get inside him on his own was to express his trust in the man, without having to say it to his face. 

Draco laid his head down on his hands, patiently waiting for the other to get down to his level and take him again. His anus throbbed and ached with the desire to be filled again, and his heart was racing with excitement. Draco’s brain toyed with him, telling him that it wanted to be fucked all night, over and over again until there was nothing but pleasure in the world. The former Slytherin knew that it wasn’t realistic to be able to go all night, for neither of them, but he let his mind indulge in such fantasies as he felt the other’s head sinking inside of him once more, pushing some cum out as it returned to its rightful place deep within him. 

  
  


**Harry Potter: **

Well, eh, he felt very needy when he was pushing himself up against Draco, hoping, wishing that the other would allow him another round.    
  
The others affirmation that they would continue was met with a rather forceful hug, which in turn ended up having Harry push himself deeper inside the other, letting out a shaky breath as well. He needed the movement, no matter how excited he was, he wouldn’t remain hard forever if they were just remaining still. He also found, very much so, that he was enjoying making it harder for the other to talk; it made him want to see just how far he could push Draco into a pleasured mess.

Still, Draco clearly had a plan, clearly knew what he wanted, which was all the more preferable for Harry who felt a bit like a dizzy mess, high on his orgasm, tingling from head to toe with subtle sensations and sense of euphoria. Goodness he was glad that Draco knew what he was doing, Harry himself was almost an expert on doing things while having no idea what he was doing, so it was reassuring that one of them knew better.    
  
Said man moved past Harry and relocated himself somewhere in the darkness of the room, somewhere on the floor, judging by the direction of his voice. “I-...uh, think so,” he admitted, thoughtfully, as he grinned to himself. Someone, no names mentioned, had clearly forgotten that he was literally blind as a bat in the darkness, and the only grace saving him was the fact that he was sort of familiar with the bathroom as it was. Without his glasses, Draco, and most of everything, were just blurred shadows, which he could barely make out. 

Okay, maybe that was a bit of a lie, because when he did look down towards the direction of the voice, Harry believed that he could sort of make out the shape of the ass he was getting very familiar with. Combined with his imagination running wild, the position the other seemed to be in was maddenly enticing, probably because he was already that very aroused. Harry was very soon in quite the hurry to locate his wand, and to relocate himself behind the other again. With his bad eyesight, he opted to be very touchy, to make certain he knew exactly where he had the other. He felt like he was guiding himself around blind, even if it wasn’t the entire truth; it was sort of… exhilarating. 

At least he managed to transfigure more lube in the dark, and proceeded to lube himself up, pumping his erection for just a bit longer to make certain he’d get properly hard again, after his fussing about with preparation. By no means was he silent then, hoping Draco would like what he was hearing behind himself, in the dark.    
  
Blind as ever in the dark, he traced the other’s hips into the middle of the lower back, and down until he felt his way back to the anus, brushing over it gently with the fingers of his right hand. With the left hand he redirected his dick to the position which seemed the most correct. He put a little pressure on Draco’s lower back with his arm to signal for the other to move down ever so slightly, which helped a lot with the positioning.    
  
It went easier than he had expected, and soon he felt his head sink past the folds of muscles inside the man, buried deep into welcoming warmth, the hole rather open at that point. When Harry started moving again, finding that he enjoyed the shape of the other’s waist and hips even more with the firm grip he could have on the hips, he also found that the cum inside the other man made him slide back and forth a lot easier, almost like lubrication on the inside. Within moments, he had gone back to thrusting again. He was very eager to find out how loud Draco would be from this new position. 

He found out a few new things he hadn’t known about sex. One of the facts was that he very much preferred sex standing up before on his knees, because even with the rug the whole procedure was straining his knees, and that was a minor annoyance in the back of his mind most of the time, like having a strand of hair poking him in the face, barely noticeable but uncomfortably, without being able to remove it. Harry also found that he might prefer anal sex before vaginal sex. Seeing the fact that the head of his dick was rather big, at least compared to some others, and was rather sensitive, it was gratifying when Draco’s ass tightened up around him just at the outer ring of muscles; in a sense, it almost felt like a far superior, very wet, warm and pleasurable handjob, like being jerked off really good. The ass didn’t get tight all the way inside, never squeezed him a little too much, at least not thus far.    
  
With the added lubrication on the inside, he could be a little rougher with Draco, it seemed, because the harder he was thrusting, the louder the other got. Of course, like the last time, he couldn’t keep up that high a pacing the whole time, and the other asked him to slow down a little bit too. It took Harry an embarrassing amount of time to realise that the other was jerking off as well, but when he did, he also realised that he really didn’t want to orgasm before the other; it sort of felt like an achievement, he wanted to be able to pleasure the other just that well really. He had to stop himself mid motion several times, feeling his entire being tingling and throbbing with the need for more release, and fighting it. 

  
By the time the other finally hit a climax, he was so very sensitive that it was hard for him to come altogether, and it took a while longer before he did release inside Draco again. Harry was a panting mess at that point, and just leaned down over the man below him, his forehead resting on the other’s back. He pulled out before the other asked him to, his no-longer-that-much-of-an-erection was aching ever so slightly. Without getting up really, he pushed himself back to sit down on the tiles in the shower, where the , which would allow him to wash himself off.    
  
“HHa-... was that good?” It was a very, very sincere question. Harry really wanted to know, seeing the fact that he had never really had anal sex before. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was just a giant hurtle in the way: the Weasleys. Years of rivalry and hostility did not just disappear like that, and Draco found that he could not just ignore the fears which were building inside of him.

**Draco Malfoy: **   
He sighed when Harry pulled out of him the second time, if it was out of relief due to the intruder starting to become painful, or a noise of displeasure as the intruder could have stayed just a little longer, Draco could not tell. Nonetheless, he finally got the chance to shift his knees, which had become a little too familiar with the tiles for his liking, and had thus started to ache. He really should have learnt at this point, but it seemed like he never did; sex on a hard surface could never compare to sex on a soft surface. With the former always being less pleasurable. Still, there was some pleasure to be gained from slight discomfort, but one needed to be in the mindset for it. Today, Draco was not so much for it, but he had had other days where discomfort had been part of the fun of the act. 

He was hugged, and Potter sat down somewhere behind him, leaving the former Slytherin with a lot of room to stretch his legs out, half rolling around to sit with his legs to the side, resting most of his weight on one arm, as he felt the other’s cum slowly trickle out of him. Draco sighed again, this time due to feeling comfortable, his stomach was aching slightly from the rough sex, but it was a pain he recognized and appreciated. 

Behind him, the other man asked if he had been good. Draco turned to look at him over his shoulder, by now, he could clearly make out the features of the other man, seeing him as clear as he could in the dark of the bathroom. Had someone else asked, he would have laughed at them, dismissing their question with the understanding that he would not have been that loud had it been uncomfortable or unpleasant for him. Yet, he was very aware that Potter was a former Gryffindor, which meant that the man would beyond doubt be sensitive about his performance. Gryffindors were all like that, loud, boasty, and if they thought they had made a mistake or the like, they were likely to sulk or be outright angry, or at least so Draco was convinced about. Thus, he shifted himself, and moved over on all fours to the other man’s side, where he half laid down in his lap, resting his head on the other’s shoulder, as his arms sneaked their way around his waist. 

“Yes, Harry,” by using the other’s name, he was hoping to invoke a positive memory in the other’s head, connecting Draco’s use of his name to sexual, sensual events, rather than something to be carelessly used in everyday conversation. “It was good. Perhaps you should be grateful that I’m more used to it, since you were that eager to go again.” He chuckled and lifted his hand to flick the other’s left nipple. After a short time of silence, he continued speaking, in a very small voice. “I… needed that. By a lot.” He didn’t say thank you, but he was close to it. In return for his words, he received the biggest forehead kiss. Draco, in the most mature of expressions, responded with a ‘tsk,’ to hide his real emotions. 

The two men washed themselves off, and walked together towards the bedroom. Draco, who saw their sexual act as more than enough reason for him to not have to get dressed again, placed his clothes neatly over the frame of the bed, and slid down under the covers. He was no longer wet, and his thin hair had dried enough that it wouldn’t be a problem to lay down on the pillow. He shuddered with cold, and sank deep underneath the covers, until only his hair, nose, and eyes were visible over the edge of it. He watched as the other man moved to begin putting his sleeping clothes on, earning a groan from the blonde man. “I assure you, it will be a lot more comfortable under here without a shirt in the way.” Not to mention that Draco was very not used to, or comfortable, with the strange muggle fabric which made up a T-shirt. It was clearly a sign of his upbringing, for he had only known expensive fabrics and clothing over those more referred to as ‘common.’ 

Harry Potter joined him under the covers, naked, just like Draco had requested. The former Slytherin was not in the least ashamed of himself or his current desires, and quickly moved over to the other, lacing his legs around the other’s, and placed himself comfortably on his shoulder and chest, expecting Potter to wrap an arm around him posthaste. He noted in the back of his head that he was happy that he had shaved when back home, or his stubble would have made them both significantly uncomfortable. Draco was not sleepy, but he found that he had begun to relax. He closed his eyes, finding the familiar comfort which came with being close to another person after sex, when the heat from the other’s body eased the soft ache in his stomach and back, and the audible sound of the other’s heartbeat filled his ear. For the first time in a long while, he felt warm, comfortable, and safe. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
Being called Harry by the very same voice that had repeated his surname with such a distinctive tone for almost a whole decade pushed him out of balance more than he had expected. 

He felt… something. It wasn’t a bad something. Whatever said something was made his lips spread into yet another wide grin; it almost felt as if he had achieved, well, something, upon hearing Draco say his name. 

He was a little out of breath, and couldn’t quite tell if it was simply him being out of breath, or if he had been that very nervous. He felt nervous, still, sort of, uh, kinda like a relieved kind of nervous. Was there relieved kinds of nervousness? Probably, he was obviously feeling it. It felt good that he was nervous over something which wasn’t inherently dangerous, and wasn’t connected to fear. Heh, maybe he truly was that messed up.    
  
Draco seemed to have very precise plans for what would be happening next. Those plans included laying naked on top of Harry, in a manner which the Man-Who-Killed-Voldemort could only compare to that of a possessive animal. He hadn’t had a partner who snuggled up to him in this possessive manner, and it just-... well, it somehow felt obvious that it would be exactly what Draco Malfoy would be like; he had no idea why it felt obvious. Harry liked it; he even more liked being able to pull the other closer with his arm. In a sense, it felt like a picky and defensive cat, one which had not liked him very much in the past, finally trusted him enough to let him close. He really couldn’t stop smiling to himself.    
  
Harry had to admit he found himself mighty comfortable, right there, right then. Still, he wasn’t particularly sleepy yet, and there were loads of things he wanted to ask the other, talk about, or even reflect over through all their years of, mostly one-sided, rivalry. They did have a lot to talk about, probably a lot which should be talked about.    


“So, that thing about time travel-...”

\---

“Hey, it’s going to be fine. They’re not as bad as you’ve been taught to think.” Harry was trying to sound absolutely convinced, despite the fact that part of him did worry about certain members of the Weasley household. He was worried about Ron’s reaction and behaviour, especially since it seemed that Ron had decided that he and Hermione had to be there tomorrow, as if he somehow couldn’t leave his family, or Teddy, with a Malfoy. Of course, Ron was acting stupid, and was being absolutely unreasonable, but what else was new.

They had stayed up rather late, the evening before, where him retelling some of the absolutely insane and unsafe adventures which were completely unsuited for children the age he had been, lead to actual discussions about the past. To Harry’s great delight, Draco was still as keen as ever on criticizing his fame, acknowledgement and supposed achievements, and it seemed to have surprised Draco quite some that he was very inclined to agree with every word of criticism. It felt wonderful to have someone else capable of seeing just how unreasonable a lot of things had been. Of course, he had also seen to be thoroughly telling Draco the story of when he, at the age of twelve, thoroughly embarrassed the other man’s father and freed their house elf. 

They had woken up entangled with one another, and Harry wouldn’t have it any other way. An hour and some coffee later, he was even coherent enough to actually try to calm the other down. They had a somewhat calm breakfast, and had gotten dressed and ready to leave, through the open fireplace in the living room. Harry was currently making certain he had everything which he needed with him, which wasn’t a great many things, he was just a rather forgetful individual to begin with.    
  
At the very least, Draco had promised him to behave nicely, and try to not judge the others, or act judgemental.    
  
“If Ron is being unreasonable, just ignore him, the rest of us sure will.”    
  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
The night ended up being a long conversation. Draco was not entirely satisfied with what would become a sleepless night, but the conversation was more than intriguing. It felt like Harry Potter had told him everything about his life before they finally fell asleep. Draco had been told all, or, most of the things which the crazy child had been up to, and he had heard Harry describe what sort of effect it had had on him as a person. The same themes came back over and over again: a lack of trust in adults, and a strong drive and need for self sacrifice, for that was all which the young man had come to associate with happiness, and pressure to always be more than could reasonably be expected of anyone. 

Harry Potter had constantly been left without information, and without knowledge, until he had done something bad, and then been told the truth. Reckless and hurtful behavior had been overlooked time and time again in favor of praising Potter, and never quite making him find a worth outside of being, well, The-boy-who-saved-all-those-people. At no point had Harry been able to find comfort in an adult figure for longer than a month at most, and the abandonment complex was very clear in him. Draco didn’t tell him, but he silently decided that he would try to avoid lying to the man.

Draco mostly listened to Harry Potter talk, where he lay on the man’s arm and listened to his heart beat. Every now and then, he would berate the other man for his reckless behavior and his foolish conclusions, but by the end of their long conversation, he found that he was more or less trying to reprimand the people around Harry for letting things go that far. 

It made Draco feel surprisingly in control when he was able to inform the wizard-who-was-more-or-less-muggle of how things worked in the Wizarding World, and what mistakes and crimes the other had committed. Most of them, Harry knew, but there was some information which the fullblood could actually share with him. 

Still, the night continued as they talked, and somewhere and later, Draco fell asleep on the other man’s arm. 

\---

In theory, the day was already planned out, and should be relatively harmless. In theory. 

Draco did not look forward to this at all, but he felt like it was his duty to at least see his relative, Teddy Lupin. If anything was clear from talking with Harry Potter yesterday, it was that children who grew up without family tended to suffer. The family didn’t need to be blood related, but Draco found that he didn’t want Teddy to grow up knowing that he had blood related family which never cared enough to even come see him. 

He had to see the child. He had to be a presence in his life. If everything else he had done had turned out wrong, Draco wanted to do right for this child’s future. 

There was just a giant hurtle in the way: the Weasleys. Years of rivalry and hostility did not just disappear like that, and Draco found that he could not just ignore the fears which were building inside of him. Harry Potter noticed, and began talking about Ron Weasley, and how Draco should handle him. While he was thankful for the advice, it didn’t fully calm him. 

Draco turned away from the mirror, where he had managed to tame his hair enough for it not to be everywhere, as it tended to be in the morning when he hadn’t taken care of it the night before after the shower. At least he was clean shaved and his clothes looked good; good, not great. He had opted for slightly less dark colors than usual, to avoid any comparison to Death Eaters or the Dark Lord, and was instead wearing a green shirt with grey trousers. Draco hadn’t worn these trousers for what felt like years, and they were somehow a little too big while being a little too small, in that there was some space in the waist region, and crotch, but a little shorter than he’d like in length. It had been quite a surprise to find that he mostly had black in his closet, along with some green pieces and this one pair of grey trousers. He hadn’t had that much of a choice when it came to what trousers to wear. Harry assured him that the trousers were fine when he brought up his discomfort with the lacking length. 

When they were about to enter and leave for the Burrows, Draco found himself grabbing the man’s arm, and held him back from using the Floo-powder. “...Fine, I… I’m worried about Arthur Weasley.” He confessed. He sought words to describe what he felt like, and found himself coming up short. Then, he tried again, this time after taking a deep breath. “I’m scared that he will be like my father, petty. Father never hesitated to hit where it would hurt, using what he could to make certain he came out on top, and… I’m worried that… What I mean to say is, with everything else I’ve seen and heard of him, that Arthur Weasley will be just like my father.” 

  
  


**Harry Potter: **

The morning was going swimmingly.    
  
See, Draco wasn’t openly complaining about anything, or changing his mind in any manner too sharp to steer back in the right direction. Harry hadn’t actually had to argue for why they should go even once, during all of the morning, even if the other was visibly nervous. 

In all honesty, of course Harry was nervous as well. It was a different sort of nervous, a nervous based on everything which could turn out wrong, small and big. He was worried about conflicts, and even while he wouldn’t admit it, he was nervous about a majority of the Weasleys and their reactions. Draco was a-... well uh, rather sensitive person, in all honesty. The short version of that said being that Draco didn’t deserve to be humiliated or feel bad, for all which his father had done and forced upon him, and his family. Harry knew which side he would have to take, if things turned out bad, and he knew how much Ron antagonised people who took the opposite side. It was just-... He hoped so dearly that things would all be fine.    
  
Ron and Hermione weren’t even supposed to be there, but now they were. Harry suspected Ron was there out of distrust for Draco, and Hermione most probably to make sure Ron didn’t do anything too outrageous. 

Oh well. He had handled worse. Probably.  He was about to have them travel, when Draco suddenly grabbed him.    
  
Harry didn’t mean to feel his heart skip out of just a moment’s panic. He really didn’t want Draco to back out of it. He didn’t even notice that he was holding his breath.    
  
Still, Draco didn’t change his mind, and Harry heaved out a heavy sigh in relief. Instead, the other finally admitted to, well, practically being scared of Arthur Weasley. Heh, yeah well, Arthur was intimidating in his own, socially incapable, manner, Harry supposed. The other’s worries made sense, and rather bitterly, Harry realised that he couldn't truly assure Draco it wouldn’t be a problem, because that could potentially be a lie. Harry was still as disappointed and bothered by the fact as ever, that the Weasleys weren’t actually a lot better than the prejudiced purebloods. An act of wrong in the opposite direction didn’t make it right, or alright for the matter. There was so much which could be said about the Weasleys and the Malfoys in their endless stupid feud, and Harry couldn’t really make any promises. He did know one thing he could say though.    
  
Swiftly, he turned around, and brought his free hand up to around Draco’s waist, pulling the other closer. “It’s alright, I’m with you there. Besides, we don’t even know if Arthur is home, and he really has calmed down in the aspect of his rivalry with your dad, ever since I suggested his obsession with your father creepy in a sense which made him sound, well, like an upset ex.” At that, Harry grinned widely, amused with the reaction he was seeing about to brew up in the other’s eyes.    
  
“Really, it does make more sense than one would think. They do act that sort of petty upset, dedicated to causing each other misery, which muggles usually only ever do to former partners they’ve ended very badly with. It calmed him down fine.” He felt like he had waited forever to tell Draco that, for some reason; he was beaming like a sun.   
  
“Let’s go, shall we? I’m right there with you.”    



	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A nudge and a grin told the blonde that the other man wanted his attention, so he looked towards the picture which Harry was trying to show him. With a strained expression, Draco looked, finding a picture of Arthur Weasley. It took him a little while to realize what Weasley he was looking at, but upon realizing who was smiling back at him from inside the picture, the former Slytherin groaned. He looked over at the other, before reaching out to pinch his nose. When Harry opened his mouth to object, Draco pushed the remains of the cookie into his lover’s mouth. 

**Draco Malfoy:**   
He was most certainly not prepared for the other’s spin, which captured him around his waist, and in a position which Draco was convinced that he had seen in one of the movies which he had been made to watch. He blinked, immediately disliking the mischievous twinkle in the other’s eye as the man-who-killed-Voldemort grinned at him. He was not about to like whatever would leave the other’s lips next. Indeed not, Draco felt how his lips became a thin line, and his eyes conveyed more than clearly what he thought of that tasteless prank. The smile on the other’s face grew wider, and the pureblood could not stop himself from giving the other a light whack on the cheek with his own hand. 

“You… you are the most tasteless of… Wizards…” He confessed and leaned in to kiss where he had lightly hit the other. “You make up the strangest things… I…” He couldn’t figure a way to end the sentence, and came to hug the other instead. He did feel better now. A lot better even. He might still be scared but he was at least a little less scared than he had been before. 

Upon Harry’s request, he nodded, and they separated from one another. With Floo powder in hand, they walked over to the open chimney, with the dark haired man going first. Harry spoke the name of the location and disappeared, and with a few deep breaths, Draco followed. 

His first impression of the Burrow was that it was… a mess. There seemed to be things, trinkets, objects and… more things, everywhere. There was no consistency, no colors matched with anything, and some furniture was so overwhelmed by objects stacked on top of them that they couldn’t be seen anymore. Yet it wasn’t a dirty home. It was old, and it had it’s scars, but it smelled clean, not dusty. 

They were standing in the living room, or what Draco presumed to be the living room. He could see a Christmas tree in the corner of the room, one that was most likely kept fresh with magic. It was decorated in a manner which made the blonde man assume their manner of decoration to have involved throwing the decorations at the tree and keeping whatever stuck to it while discarding everything else. As Draco was staring at the tree, he heard a voice call out. 

“Oh, Harry!” 

Before he had the chance to react to it, a colorful little bundle of clothes and rags appeared in what might have once been a big doorway, but was now a much smaller space. It was red haired, and it headed straight into Harry’s arms, attacking him with hugs. 

“Oh dear, oh dear, how wonderful to see you! I hope the trip was comfortable, oh, I was expecting you earlier, I was stirring the pot, sorry to not be here when you appeared.” Molly Weasley detangled herself from the man, beaming at him like the most proud mother. She looked at Harry with, not worship, but overwhelming love and pride, while starting to brush the ashes off him. “You look thin again! This won’t do, this won’t do, are you eating enough? Your work at the Ministry must be tiring, how will you manage without food?” 

As Draco got the feeling that Molly Weasley was the type of person to always complain that her children (and almost children) weren’t eating enough, she turned towards him. He could see her stop, and just as he was about to really start feeling uncomfortable, she moved towards him, and caught him in a hug which made his ribs hurt. Draco was so shocked that he didn’t manage to hug back. 

“Welcome, welcome! Oh, you look absolutely starved! Why, almost as bad as Harry when he was still living with those horrible relatives of his. Here, here, eat this, I will not have you fall over when you are a guest in my home!” She pressed something which might have been a cookie into his hands, but could also have been a lump of butter and sugar. Draco stared at it, wondering where that had been two seconds ago, but the woman was still continuing on. 

“Teddy will be so very excited to have people over! Why, he looks more and more like his parents for every day that passed, but by Merlin have I ever had such an energetic child. You remember where his crib is, Harry, dear?” She was over by Harry so fast that she must have apparated. “It’s by my and Arthur’s bed, just to the right there.” She pointed with her hand. “I finally got him to sleep, but if you two want to have a peek, do feel welcome, but be quiet. Ron and Hermione are in his room, go say hi! I have to stir the pot.” Before she disappeared, she pressed another lump of butter and sugar into Harry’s hand, which has also appeared out of nowhere. Then she had hurricaned off, leaving them alone in the living room with the Christmas tree.

Draco looked down at the cookie, then awkwardly raised it towards Harry in a toast before tasting it. He definitely made a face over how sugary it was, one which he was certain made the green eyed man’s smile widen. 

  
  


**Harry Potter: **

It wasn’t a secret or mystery what people Harry would consider his own family, by fact, his only family. There was only one woman who had consistently acted his mother, only one awkward man who had been there like a father should, seeing his godfathers hadn’t been part of his life in the same way.    
  
Harry was never part of the Dursley family, not even during later years when they dared not torture him in the ways which they had seen fit when he was younger. To be entirely honest, his likening to a house elf wasn’t entirely wrong, it was pretty accurately a description of his part of that household.    
  
The Weasley children felt like his siblings, with the exception of Ginny who hadn’t been part of his life and friend group until later in his teenage. Then again, a lot of step siblings did end up dating or falling in love from the close proximity in which they lived to one another. She probably had felt less like his sister because of how much she had idolized him when she was younger, making her feel almost as distant as the strangers and adults who praised him for nothing. Fred and George had been chaotic, but definitely the awesome kind of brothers which a child would look up to. Percy had been that one responsible older brother who almost felt like one of the adults, and felt so impossibly grown up to a child, despite the fact that he wasn’t that very much older than them; the kind of brother one only understands upon growing up and seeing matters from different perspectives. Ron was just sort of like his brother, more than anything. It wasn’t that he consciously thought of the other as a brother at all times, rather than his best friend, it wasn’t that he was more like family than Hermione was, what made it clear was that no matter the ways Ron acted at times, Harry did forgive him, like family, for better or worse. 

Coming back to his family, and the only household which he could relate to as his family home, always made him feel sort of relaxed, and perhaps even a little bit emotional; it felt like he had a place where he belonged; it was a feeling he wished he could have experienced far earlier in life, it probably would have sorted a few of his issues earlier.    
  
His mostly-like-a-mother hugged him and he smiled at her. He was relieved, she was making this easy, already. “Actually, I’m starving. I look very much forward to lunch. Do tell if you need any help in the kitchen.” Normally children complain about their parents or grandparents trying to force food on them; these people had not usually starved in their youth. It might not be the healthiest, but Harry was hungry still, since he wasn’t much of a breakfast eater, and was very much ready for a good amount of lunch; he was also far less guilty about it now that he could partly support his almost-family due to Teddy, making it far less an economical matter. Also, while he often suggested to help out, he didn’t expect to get anything out of it. Molly was the kind of woman who needed tasks to keep herself going, who felt good performing them, and as long as she was well and healthy, Harry had no plans on stopping her; if it ever became a burden to her, rather than joy, he expected himself to be one of the first to notice and do something about it. 

He also knew that they were rather early, it wasn’t even twelve o’clock yet. Rather than Molly having expected them earlier, especially since she knew what Harry was like in the early mornings, she had probably not been able to help herself from start to plan food from rather early the same morning.

He turned towards Draco who was being fiercely hugged, and who was given a cookie by Molly before she whirled off. His smile turned into a well familiar grin. He was relieved beyond measure, he knew he could trust Molly, but he had still worried irrationally. As she whirlwinded herself away, Harry addressed Draco; “I think we should wait a bit and let Teddy sleep, he’s, as mentioned, very energetic.”    
  
… Hm. He didn’t want to greet Hermione and Ron. He didn’t want to make Draco uncomfortable just yet.    
  
“I can show you around a bit if you want? We’ll greet the others later. There are a lot of things to look at, literally.” He let the other eat the cookie, and unlike Draco, Harry was used to excessively sweet tastes, and therefore didn’t mind them too much, which was being made clear when he ate his own cookie very quickly. Then, he grabbed the other’s hand, and started pulling him about downstairs. He showed the other the general structure of rooms and where things were altogether, mostly avoiding the kitchen on the basis of letting Molly work, and not overwhelming Draco.    
  
There were photo frames and portraits everywhere, and to be fair, at this point, Harry was on more than one picture. He had also had some of his recorded quidditch achievements left with the other childrens’ in this household, rather than kept them in his own house. There were so many pictures that one could just stand and watch them for a long time. Harry noticed one picture he vaguely recalled of Arthur Weasley straight out of school, practically being their current age. Back then Arthur had been a little scrawnier, and his features had been smoother and softer, and his hair surprisingly unruly. Harry would even have dared calling him the cuter Weasley, if one counted back in the day. He nudged Draco to look at the photo frame and grinned at the other; the silent question hung in the air even without him having to phrase it, he knew Draco to be clever enough to understand what he was getting at.    


  
  
**Draco Malfoy:**   
Draco watched as Harry ate the entire cookie in less than five bites. The Malfoy was used to small cookies, the ones which were meant to be eaten in one bite as to not dirty or ruin anything from the person eating the cookie. Even in school, Draco had only selected smaller bite snacks over the bigger ones, out of habit. He sighed under his breath, and simply held on to the cookie as the dark haired man began pulling him along around the house, seeing as the pup-uh, person they had come to meet was asleep. 

Draco Malfoy had never imagined himself in the Weasley household, and he was still not sure how to feel about it. One thing was rather certain though, he wasn’t all that surprised by what he saw. It was true that he didn’t know the exact name of all the objects around them, but he had expected a mess, and he had expected there to be muggle things. It was a little strange to think that Harry Potter was putting off saying his to his friends based on… showing him around? Draco kept on pulling on his own turtleneck and scarf, just to secure them and made certain that the mark from the Ministry’s collar curse wasn’t visible. He was fidgety, and it was very embarrassing to his own image of himself. 

They stopped by a wall of pictures, and Draco had to take a step back to fully take in what he was looking at. How… could they be this disorganized… He was almost impressed with the lack of care which had gone into putting this whole wall of photos together. Impulsively, he reached out to correct a frame back into a straight position, much to the dismay of the people in the picture, and much amusement to the man-who-killed-Voldemort. 

A nudge and a grin told the blonde that the other man wanted his attention, so he looked towards the picture which Harry was trying to show him. With a strained expression, Draco looked, finding a picture of Arthur Weasley. It took him a little while to realize what Weasley he was looking at, but upon realizing who was smiling back at him from inside the picture, the former Slytherin groaned. He looked over at the other, before reaching out to pinch his nose. When Harry opened his mouth to object, Draco pushed the remains of the cookie into his lover’s mouth. 

With a little more satisfaction in his heart, he smirked at the other, having placed his hands on his hips. “Very well, I suppose he… might have looked good enough to be considered within his spectrum of attraction.” Draco confirmed that Arthur Weasley was actually cute enough that his father might have actually been interested in him. Back then at least. If someone had been listening to them, it would, thank Goodness, not have been obvious what they were talking about. 

  
  


**Harry Potter:**   
“Hemnhpp, I’m beingm asshauthed-...” he laughed, but some of the crumbs of the cookie got stuck in his throat then, and he ended up coughing rather violently, before he actually focused on chewing and swallowing the cookie rather than choking himself on it.    
  
It was becoming increasingly hard to keep a straight face as Draco was speaking, and he nearly caught the cookie in his throat a second time when his, well, current lover, confirmed that what had merely been a joke on Harry’s part might actually have been in some lengths possible. Oh, wow. He could only imagine how much it would upset Ron if he ever mentioned it, or Ginny for the matter. For now, it was probably best kept a secret, their own little inside joke so to say. Suddenly, his thought trail was interrupted by a voice from upstairs.   
  
“Harry? Is that you, Harry?”    
  
He wasn’t placed so that he could see the stairs and upper floors, but he was right in the opening, part of his legs were probably visible. Hence, he grabbed a hold of Draco’s hand once more and pulled him with him just close enough to be able to see up the stairs. True to words, Ginny’s head was peeking out from above.    
  
“Yeah, it’s us,” he responded, smiling brightly up at his ex girlfriend.    
  
He rather immediately noticed Ginny glancing at Draco, and most probably at the fact they were holding hands. Her stare went from something akin to surprise to the very well familiar glare of hers when he had done something which she considered bad. It was neutral, almost nonchalant, and very easy to recognise after the past few years, it was more often than not followed by sort of ignoring him altogether for some time.    
  
Harry didn’t want to seem like there was anything personal related to any of it, hence he was grinning as per usual, acting happy to see her; that was to say, he wasn’t trying to piss her off on purpose, she just happened to be the very easily offended sort. True to his judgement, Ginny didn’t respond to his words, but not too long after, another head appeared further up in the stairway.    
  
“Is that Harry?” Hermione was peeking out from up there. Harry waved at her with a smile, not quite able to grin the same way he had with Ginny. If Hermione was here it meant that Ron was, too.    
  
“Why, yes, yes it is,” Ginny responded, apparently deeming Hermione worthy of an answer.    
  
Hermione smiled down at Harry, waving back at him.    
  
“Is Harry here?” The owner of the voice didn’t show up, but Ron’s voice was easily recognizable, it sounded like he might be at his room, which would make sense from where Hermione had emerged out to the stairway. 

“Yes, he is,” Hermione confirmed.    
  
“Is Malfoy with him?” Ron sounded more than a little displeased.    
  
Hermione hesitated for a moment, before she spoke again. “Yes, Ron, he is.”    
  
“What are they doing down there?”    
  
“I don’t know, why don’t you ask him yourself?” Hermione tried.    
  
Harry sighed, he knew exactly what Ron would be like, and he really did not want to push any more of this onto Hermione.    
  
“I’m showing Draco around the house, in fact,” Harry responded. It almost felt like a little bit of a delight to see the expressions of his friends twist into a bitter and slightly confused one at his use of Draco’s first name. If it didn’t amuse him, it would start annoying him, so he better be amused while he could at these childish antics. Being around adults and professional Aurors on a daily basis really made it try his patience to keep up with children; to be fair, he was still a child, but playing games of ignorance and pettiness was not the sort of thing he would do, not these days.   
  
“You heard him,” Hermione confirmed, visibly rolling her eyes when Ron spoke next.    
  
“He’s showing Malfoy around, instead of coming up to greet his best friends?” The disapproval was even clearer in Ron’s voice.    
  
Hermione looked like she was preparing for an argument, hence, Harry spoke up before they could get started again. He was expecting at least one argument between the two before the day was over, it was practically customary at this point.    
  
“You’re perfectly capable of coming down and greeting us yourself, Ron,” he called up, doing his best to remain cheerful in his tone.    
  
There was silence for a while, one in which Ginny took the opportunity to roll her eyes as well and go back to wherever she had been before showing up.    
  
“Tell Harry that he wi-...”   
  
“No Ron! I am not your bloody owl, you tell him your-...”   
  
“What’s all this ruckus, children?! Don’t you know that Teddy is sleeping?”    
  
Molly’s voice was followed with complete silence from above, where Hermione disappeared off into wherever Ron was; a door slammed shut, and whatever raised voices came after were vague muffled sounds behind the door.    
  
“I’m sorry, dear, he can be the most stubborn. He certainly isn’t getting it from me;” Molly smiled apologetically, but Harry just shook his head and smiled. First of all, Molly was likely the most stubborn woman Harry had ever met, secondly, Ron was old enough to be at fault for his own mistakes without his mother apologising for him.    
  
“It’s fine, we’ll greet them later,” he told her, to allow her to get back to food preparation. 

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**   
So far, he had only been remotely uncomfortable, but that quickly changed when he heard a woman’s voice calling out for Harry. It seemed to be coming from upstairs, and so Draco attempted to take a step back but he was grabbed by the hand and instead had to take a step forward so as to not stumble. The two of them looked up into a complex arrangement of corridors and landings which reminded Draco of the moving stairways at Hogwarts in some manner of bizarre likeness which he couldn’t quite motivate himself. 

Over one of the railings he saw the face of the youngest Weasley girl, who Draco found to his horror that he had never learnt the name of. That would most certainly be awkward if discovered… He couldn’t exactly call her ‘the-girl-who-was-taken-to-the-chamber-of-secrets.’ The young woman glanced over at him, and Draco felt himself tensing up, as he frantically searched his memory for a name that wasn’t masculine and belonged to one of her brothers. He could remember a total of two Weasley names, Ron, which he assumed to be a shortening for a longer name, and Percy, who he remembered due to the man working for the ministry and thus appearing in the newspapers a few times. He had never even tried to remember the twin’s names, and he was also rather certain that one was dead, so he didn’t quite dare ask who was still alive. Arthur didn’t count, there were moments where his father had addressed the supposed fiend of a man by name in the past. 

Before anyone had the chance to call him out on anything, Hermione Granger’s hair showed up. He almost smiled with relief, until he remembered that he had spent an embarrassing amount of time harassing the poor woman for her blood… Yeah, he wasn’t really comfortable with her either. Nonetheless, they were preferable to Ron Weasley. 

What followed was a conversation which Draco held no part in, and would rather not have been present for. He continuously tried to sneak his hand back from Harry’s, but the man caught him doing it every time and returned the attempt by holding his hand tighter. 

Then, suddenly, he was addressed by his first name as the man beside him spoke up. He had spent most of the conversation avoiding to look at anyone, but when the other said his name, he started at him. He couldn’t remember Potter saying his name yesterday, not even when they were having sex, maybe, he wasn’t entirely certain, and here Harry was, throwing his name around like a weapon. He was no doubt making a point, one that Draco wasn’t sure how to feel about, but he nonetheless stared at Harry Potter with a look which was equally confused to Harry’s friends. 

What followed after that was another one of the conversations which Draco wished he hadn’t been present for, ending with Granger leaving the stairs to go talk to the redheaded issues in the shape of a man. Mrs Weasley showed up and then left, leaving Draco alone with Harry once more. 

Draco let out a breath he hadn’t known that he had been holding, and turned to Harry with a look which was in between amused, terrified and shocked. Needless to say, it was a very strange expression. 

“...You are… whatever game you are playing… I’m quite certain that you are winning.” 

Instead of going upstairs to his friends, Harry brought him out in the garden instead. The Burrows was located next to a big field, to which the other man mostly waved at before he brought the pureblood over to the culture where the Weasleys grew their crops. A little behind the crops was a muggle swing sofa, in which Harry sat down. Draco sat down next to him, and soon, they were swinging back and forth in a calm manner. 

“...Unlike what you might believe of me, I do have some level of awareness that my own behavior has not always been… acceptable in civilized company.” Harry snorted at his words, and Draco lightly kicked his shin to tell him to keep the response for a latter time. It wasn’t an angry gesture, but a more playful one. “I know I have not always been pleasant, or even tolerable but… Weasley sounds the same as he did when we were eleven… His reasoning seems to be on par of that of his child-self. Is he always like this or am I the cause for this behavior?” 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There’s no way I’m letting them put you in Azka-... wait. Hold up.”
> 
> In a flurry of movement, Harry attempted to sit up again, which nearly caused him to fall over. The quick turn to face Draco afterwards was even worse, but he saved it, very gracelessly, by putting one leg down on the ground, which also halted the movement of the swing.
> 
> “You’d do that? You’ll apologise to Hermione?” He spoke in a hurry enough to nearly stumble on the pronunciation of his friend’s name. 

**Harry Potter: **

_ “...You are… whatever game you are playing… I’m quite certain that you are winning.”  _

Harry grinned, that one grin with maniac glee reflecting in his eyes, and mischief was written all over his face. He wasn’t doing mischief per say, honestly he didn’t have the slightest clue what he was doing really, but nonetheless it was a comfort to hear that he was winning, probably. Besides, he was almost as nervous as Draco was, in some manners at least, probably. Also, whatever would come out of that mess was a problem for future Harry, he decided, as he pulled Draco outside to continue his tour; he could show the other floors of the building later. He didn’t expect the other to appreciate just wandering about the fields for some time, and decided to sit down on the swing sofa which held a pretty decent view of all of it; if he guessed, he imagined Draco needed a bit of a break. It was easier to remember that Draco needed a break than that he himself might need one. 

Before he could start telling the other about all the fond memories out in these fields, mostly quidditch related ones, Draco saw fit to inform him about what a little prick he had been all their time of knowing one another, until recently, and being decently aware of it being a problem. Harry had a very hard time holding his laughter back at the sudden confession, but made a valiant attempt nonetheless.    
  
The fun didn’t last very long, Draco asked about Ron’s behaviour, and in a sense, it was kind of difficult to answer the question. Harry stared upon his newly gained friend for a while, before he groaned and laid down on the swing, efficiently capturing Draco by the waist in a hug, and hiding against the man.    
  
Explaining Ron’s behaviour logically had to start with admitting the behaviour, and thinking about it. Whenever Harry found himself thinking too hard about Ron’s behaviours he very quickly fell into the realisation that there wasn’t really an excuse for the behaviour. It made sense back in the day, they were children, all of them, but just like Draco was indirectly pointing out, they had all grown up, they weren’t supposed to act like that anymore. If he actually thought about it, he would start getting reminded that the Weasleys had often displayed similar discrimination towards the purebloods as purebloods did everyone else, he’d have to start thinking about the fact that Ron was the worst of all of them in that aspect. For so many years they had all villainized Draco for the way he behaved, but now that even he had grown up and realised better, there wasn’t any excuses left for why Ron wasn’t doing better.    
  
Harry had lived all his life around people who were being, well, downright twats, if not outright cruel. Hermione had been his first change in spending time around someone reasonable, who wasn’t out to hurt somebody else in some manner, and who wasn’t being a child about matters. Just like he had tuned out behaviours of the people around him, Ron had been his first friend, and for a child which had never had a friend, or a brother, it had meant too much to Harry to actually care that Ron was being childish in manners which hurt the people around him. He had hurt Harry, but that rarely mattered to the boy-who-had-bigger-troubles, who had to worry about not dying every year, rather than if he was hurt. Of course, the fact that Ron had little to no respect for the weight on Harry’s shoulders, had been a large part of why he had hurt him in the past. 

The worst of it was seeing how much it continued to hurt Hermione, how much she was hurting so often. Harry knew what she felt like, he also felt responsible for the other, he also knew that Ron could be a great friend, and that it wasn’t all bad, it was just… a lot.    
  
Harry had never really had any other method of dealing with problems than enduring them, it was what had kept him alive in a world where he had no power to change his circumstances, to change what was continuously done to him. While logically, he had seen adults deal with matters in a more useful sense, he really wasn’t capable of applying those methods to the situation with Ron, at least not yet. 

With yet another grunt he turned around, which proved a bit more of a challenge than he originally anticipated, but the swing was moving with his movements. By the end of it, he lost his balance and grabbed onto Draco’s arm, more or less falling into his lap again. There he was laying, looking up at the man, looking a little startled for a moment before he made himself comfortable, finding the other’s lap a perfect placement for his head.    
  
He looked at Draco for a while, before he stared past him up at the sky above.    
“He’s definitely worse because you’re here,” he reasoned at first, “he’s normally pretty decent, he’s just not very go-... actually, downright terrible, at dealing with problems. You are sort of a problem, not just the way you’ve behaved all this time, not just that stupid family feud, but the fact that he was dragged into a war he didn’t ask for, and you were on the other side, with the enemy. He does not know how to handle that.”    
  
“No, I guess he’s not the best at dealing with hardship in general, either, but point is, it’s definitely because he doesn’t know how to handle the whole thing with you.” He absentmindedly reached up to play with Draco’s sleeve cuff. 

  
  


**Draco Malfoy:**

“Oppmf!” 

Draco Malfoy was not a physically strong person, he had always had Crabbe and Goyle for that, and had thus never really needed to be strong. Alright, no, that was a lie; he had been decently strong during the years he played Qidditch, but that was long ago. That meant that when the rather physically impressive Harry Potter was falling, and grabbed on to his arm, Draco’s entire body followed him and Harry quickly returned to his position in Draco’s lap, his head colliding with Draco’s thigh which was apparently more sore than he was prepared for it to be. The pureblood lightly slapped some locks of the dark hair into the man’s face, his glasses would protect him from the whip of the hair so he would undoubtedly be fine. He grunted and shook his head at the other’s grin, before leading back in the sofa, surrendering to his position as a pillow. 

Draco sighed as he was called a problem, and leaned his head back enough that Potter couldn’t quite see his expression. As a young wizard, he had never thought of himself as a problem, everyone else had been the problem. There had only been two different people in the world, those who were with him, and those who were against him. His blood demanded that he be treated well, his blood demanded that he was treated justly. He was allowed to say things which others found shocking, because they were simply too ignorant to know the real truth. It was embarrassing how he had thought himself safe from anything and everyone in the wizarding world, how he had been untouchable by all manners of forces which might wish others harm. 

The most painful wakeup call had been his father’s arrest. They were supposed to be on the right side, the untouchable side, yet his father was arrested. The man who had always been the symbol of everything Draco tried to be, the man who had always been able to wield his will without the need for magic, due to his talents in persuasion. The man who kept him and his mother safe, was suddenly removed from his life, and all the burdens which he carried fell on his son. It had been beyond terrifying to find that he was no longer protected, no longer safe, and mistakes could lead to actual physical harm on his part… or worse. 

The second wake up call was when Crabbe had changed. His father might have been gone, and he had never really expected Crabbe and Goyle to be able to help him in anything delicate, but he had never imagined Crabbe questioning him. At first, it had been so utterly unbelievable that he hadn’t been able to comprehend it. Then, it became terrifying. Especially when Crabbe realised that he could use pure force and violence to get his way. 

Draco was called back to the moment when Harry began playing with his sleeve, and he looked down. Slowly, he smiled at him, and held the snake out for him to be able to see it properly. 

“I would think that very few people are. Some are simply more used to it.” He lightly tapped the other’s nose and then shook his head. “...Is there… anything I can do to try and mend… things?” It felt wrong to ask that question, it felt wrong to admit to being wrong, it felt wrong to try and mend close to ten years of children feuding over complicated matters of wizarding politics. “I might go to Azkaban tomorrow, I… feel like I am running out of time. If I am about to face half an eternity in prison, where I am sure my regrets will be plenty, I feel like I owe it to myself to make an attempt, no matter how humiliating it might be.” He didn’t manage to look the other in the eye as he spoke. “...At the very least, I would like to apologise to Granger.” 

  
  


**Harry Potter:** **   
** “There’s no way I’m letting them put you in Azka-... wait. Hold up.”    
  
In a flurry of movement, Harry attempted to sit up again, which nearly caused him to fall over. The quick turn to face Draco afterwards was even worse, but he saved it, very gracelessly, by putting one leg down on the ground, which also halted the movement of the swing.    
  
“You’d do that? You’ll apologise to Hermione?” He spoke in a hurry enough to nearly stumble on the pronunciation of his friend’s name. 

Hermione had the entire world against her, in so many ways. She was rarely recognised for her genius, despite what one might think since at least a few Hogwarts professors did recognise her intellect properly. She had been through a lot, had been the best support Harry could ever have hoped for, and she was, after all, one of the main reasons he was still alive to this day. While she wouldn’t admit it, while she logically knew better, Harry knew that her heritage bothered her, not because there was anything wrong with it, but because she was mistreated for it. She had lived in a world where she was constantly made fun of, whether it was students, teachers, enemies or friends, whether it was her intellect, her blood, her personality, her appearance, or her words. She never expected to be taken seriously by anyone, and a sincere apology from the man who had spent so long bullying her for anything and everything would likely mean a lot more to her than she’d let on, but it didn’t matter if she let it show or not. 

It was all the more bizarre because the suggestion came from Draco Malfoy himself, rather than Harry needing to convince him to do the right thing. Not quite knowing what to do with himself, and the sudden wave of emotions he experienced, he leaned in and captured Draco’s lips. It was by no means graceful, he was still only half sitting on the swing, and needed one hand to balance himself with the help of the backrest, while he put the other on Draco’s leg to not fall forward in mid motion; he almost did anyway. He kissed the other with excitement and passion equal to what he felt, which in turn might be a little sloppy, and too eager and he couldn’t give the darndest bit right then because it felt good and Draco was being absolutely amazing in manners which years of seeing the opposite had made Harry not exactly dare hoping, and he needed an outlet, sort of immediately.    
  
When he was done assaulting Draco’s lips with sloppy makeouts, he grinned brightly at the other; “Brilliant,” he stated at first, and then continued, “we have to make sure you’re alone though, and don’t expect her to go easy on you, you don’t exactly deserve her going easy, but Ron should definitely not be there, and Ginny shouldn’t be, either.”    
  
**   
** **Draco Malfoy:**   
There was a flurry of movement, and Draco soon found the other man right up in his face. He blinked as he felt his accursed cheeks turn red with embarrassment. The half blood spoke so hurriedly that Draco barely managed to understand what he had said. He blinked once more, and then slowly nodded. 

“Y-yes…?” He did not mean to make that sound like a question. “At the very least, I’d think that is what I-” he didn’t manage to finish his sentence before he was practically attacked by the madman named Harry Potter, and kissed so sloppily and fiercely that he felt like he was about to be toppled over. Draco did his very best to return his enthusiasm, but he was somewhat at a loss as to what exact reason the other was so happy with him. Of course, he knew that it was related to the other’s friend, but to simply apologise to her was not worth this much of a reward, was it? Nonetheless, the attention felt good, and he welcomed it.

When the fierce makeout had been deemed complete by Harry, he pulled back, leaving Draco out of breath and very red in the face. He reached up to try and arrange his hair back in order, and then proceeded to correct his collar as to not reveal the mark of the Collar Curse. 

Then, for the first time in his life, he was called brilliant, and the compliment made him blush even more fiercely. He tried to wave it away by looking to the side and waving his hand, and as he did, he was hit by the feeling of being watched. It was strange seeing as Harry was of course already looking at him, and so, he pushed the thoughts back as his own paranoia. 

“P-please, there is no need for all this… enthusiasm… If it means so much to you, I suppose I could do it right away? That lunch will assuredly be awkward no matter how I appear, I might as well try to speak with her prior to it.” It was easy to tell that he was nervous in that he had adapted a much more formal manner of speaking. “That is to say… if she might be willing to spare the time to listen to me…” 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here he was, Draco Malfoy, standing inside Ron Weasley’s room. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that everything in that room was a trap, and he was more than scared of looking at anything. It was very hard to not look about and judge what he was seeing, so he tried his best to only focus on Harry. That quickly became a problem when the object of his focus was attacked by means of hugging from one of the objects which he tried very hard to not focus on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While we have not abandoned this work, we are currently rather busy with a larger project, rather than our usual roleplay logs and small writing for fun. For Harry Potter content, we hope you'll enjoy the [Son of a Werewolf](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1854529) series we are currently working on. We've clearly gone insane as we're making an attempt of rewriting the whole series. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

**Harry Potter: **

It felt strangely good to be allowed to act so very out of line without any bad consequences following up. Draco was turned into so much a mess that Harry was smiling so very wide that his cheeks were hurting, feeling sort of giddy about it all.    
  
There would have been no way he could have, well, would have dared just attacking Ginny in a manner which would turn them both into such messes. It would be embarrassing, and he’d likely embarrass her, and there was just no sense in which Harry could imagine himself doing such a thing to someone else. Draco, however, was experienced in a different manner altogether, and embarrassing him, in terms of causing a flustered reaction, was fun, exciting even. Draco didn’t seem to mind Harry at his well… less graceful moments, and there were a lot of them, most of them having to do with being less contained than he assumed himself expected to be. Harry didn’t know or understand just how broken of a person he was, even if he could assume it was pretty bad. It meant a lot of matters which should be normal felt very much like an act to him, because he hadn’t experienced them growing up, and he was always just a little out of place. He couldn’t put words on it, and therefore assumed it was because Draco was pretty messed up as well, and because there was nothing he needed to hide, to be good enough for the other. 

He didn’t know what he wanted or where he wanted to go with it all; as previously stated, Harry was, very clearly, terrible at planning ahead. What he did know was that he didn’t expect Draco to disappear out of his life anytime soon, provided he could persuade the Wizarding community to not act like a flock of fools. 

Harry clearly needed to devise a plan.    
  
Worst of it was that he wasn’t particularly good at devising plans, that was sort of supposed to be Hermione’s forté and he had never quite needed to be the one doing the planning. Still, he had some level of Auror training and he had a lot of knowledge on the topic of his friends behaviours. There should be a decent strategy, somehow. He had been around his friends long enough to know that Hermione, even if someone apologised to her, would need some time to even believe somebody to be sincerely apologising, rather than mocking her, which he relayed to the man beside him. She was often very restrained and collected, and when she did get upset, she tended to burst ever so slightly with emotions. Harry wanted Draco to be prepared for the fact that she might react in a rather ugly manner, even if he was clearly intending on doing the right thing.    
  
“Know what, I think I’ll just ask to speak to Ron alone, and I’ll ask Hermione to take you elsewhere for it. She’d probably do that for me.” 

After all, Hermione did pretty much anything for him without question, if only maybe a bit of fuss, and sometimes without him even asking. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it, and expected it to be part of her need to feel, well, useful and needed to not be completely brought down. To have someone just sincerely apologise to her seemed to be the best thing which could happen to her. 

It would also have the good effect of Ron probably not acting out and thinking too much about Draco in his house, if the focus is on Harry and speaking to him. There would be no way he’d let Draco anywhere near his girlfriend if he knew the intents and purposes, mostly since he would absolutely refuse to believe Draco had sincere intentions.    
  
He confirmed that Draco was ready, then leaned in to kiss him in a much more restrained manner, to not mess the other up right before heading inside. Still, he grabbed Draco’s hand and pulled him along, on the way back inside telling the other about the fact that they were currently looking at his practice stage for quidditch, and he was telling of all the times they had played out on the fields. 

Harry was definitely guilty of being as slow as possible with getting back inside. For a moment, he thought he saw Ginny glancing at the two of them through the window, but shrugged it off. It didn’t really matter, anyway; she was already upset with him. At least he expected her to be a lot more sensible than Ron, and probably calm down about the whole matter rather soon and without too much input. 

Once inside, he pulled Draco with him up the stairs, and true to expectations, they noted Ginny on the other side of the stairway, but she headed back into her room without greeting either of them. 

Instead, Harry made a quick stop at what was mostly his own room, noting to Draco where it was, or well, that was to say, Bill Weasley’s room which he was allowed to borrow while living there and being there. It was likely a good retreat, for their plan. Then, they stopped at a door which Harry knocked on once before he simply opened it, not quite waiting for a response, and he pulled Draco inside with him. He had decided that pulling Draco with him everywhere was a strategy to make everything seem like his fault, not that there was anything to be faulted for, but he expected people to try finding faults, and if they were going to, he’d much rather take responsibility for them.    
  
Ron was sitting at his bed, looking none the happier than he had sounded previously, and Hermione was sitting by the desk, looking… well, drained.    
  
“Well, guys, this is depressing,” Harry commented with a grin, “you’ve missed out on a lot of fun down there, I’ve never seen someone so misplaced in this household,” he nudged Draco and let go of the other. It looked like Ron was about to respond, but Hermione was faster, and got up to hug him, which he enthusiastically accepted. The hug lasted quite a few moments, before she let go, and before she was forced to greet Draco, which Harry could tell was hard for her as well, he spoke up. “Hey, could you take Draco outside, just for a moment? I want to talk to Ron.”    
  
He heard a loud sigh from the bed behind Hermione, but at least she looked, albeit unsure as well, almost relieved. “Right, go ahead. Try to make him listen,” she commented dryly before she walked over to Draco, and passed him in the doorway.    
  
“... Harry showed you around already, didn’t he?” She drew a sharp breath as she spoke, clearly uncomfortable and unsure how to act. She was looking upon Draco in an almost expectant defensive manner, probably expecting something out of him, something which was not very good or civilised. 

**Draco Malfoy:** **  
** So here he was, Draco Malfoy, standing inside Ron Weasley’s room. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that everything in that room was a trap, and he was more than scared of looking at anything. It was very hard to not look about and judge what he was seeing, so he tried his best to only focus on Harry. That quickly became a problem when the object of his focus was attacked by means of hugging from one of the objects which he tried very hard to not focus on. 

Harry Potter handled things surprisingly smoothly, and Draco was soon out of the room again, shutting the door behind him. He took a deep breath, unable to hold it back, and noticed only afterwards that Granger had done the same thing. He glanced at her and immediately grew uncomfortable with the way she looked at him, thus looking away. 

“Yes… he did show me around on the ground floor. We stepped outside shortly, but I would not claim to have been shown around outside, I’d be grateful if you’d take over from him.” He really hoped that he didn’t sound suspicious but he probably was. Carefully, and hesitant, he continued to speak: “I would also like to inform you that I have no wand, or do I have jurisdiction to use any magic until after… the trial.” 

Harry might have introduced him to the room upstairs so that he was able to take her there and speak with her, but the tiny, messy house with all its clustered items and things and stuff made Draco feel claustrophobic. Not that he knew what claustrophobic was, he only knew that he was uncomfortable in the house, and would very much want to go back outside of it. 

After what felt like an eternity, the woman agreed and after giving him another expectant look, she walked past him and led him outside. The fresh air smelled even better now than it did when he had first stepped outside a little earlier. His hand nervously travelled to his scarf as he corrected it.

Before he spoke up, he made a point to move himself away from the door as to not seem like he was trying to block her path, should she decide that she didn’t want to try and deal with him right then. Which was, after all, a very understandable reaction. 

Draco spoke up, very carefully. “Uh, Gran- eh, Miss Granger?” The look she gave him when he added ‘miss’ to her name made him retrace his steps very quickly. “Granger. I do not want to seem like I am deceiving you, so I will try and be perfectly honest.” 

It was rather strange. In his head, he had a plan of exactly what to say and how to say it, but when he was actually speaking, nothing really came out like he wanted it to. Her expression as he continued talking made him all the more nervous, and he only managed to continue speaking thanks to Harry’s earlier warnings about how she might react. 

“I… I wanted to address you alone, and Po-, uh… H-harry told me that Weasley would not let you speak to me alone, so he devised this outcome as to allow me to actually speak to you.” He felt as if he might be betraying the other wizard, but he really didn’t want to be walking behind her back with anything. Draco was rather certain that she would appreciate knowing the truth right away rather than to keep it hidden from her until she figured it out herself. 

“I…” He found that he was hesitating, as he was avoiding her eyes as well as keeping his arms in front of him as he spoke, as if to keep some manner of protection for himself. How many years had he hurt her again? At least for five years he had been her bully and tormentor. Perhaps even six, but he didn’t remember being all that involved in doing anything but despairing and running in and out of the Room of Requirements for most of the year. “I want to apologise to you. For the way I have been acting all this time, the way I have been treating you, all the… nicknames I used against you… For all the discrimination, hurt and insult I’ve caused you, an apology is the very least I owe you.” 

He finished his apology by bowing to her. Not just lowering his head, not just bending a little forward, but truly bowing to her. He did not get down on his knees, but he did bow further than he had even to the Dark Lord. 

**Hermione Granger: **

If Hermione Granger was to be perfectly honest with herself, she found herself rather ambivalent whether or not the helplessness in dealing with her partner’s inability to cooperate or being left alone with the perceived enemy was the worse deal in the offer. 

Harry, reckless and rather insane as he was, might be able to get through to Ron in some manner which she had yet to figure out, or at least so she could hope. If not, she expected the day to be quite an endurance test on all parts involved. Ron could be so absolutely bloody impossible to deal with, and being left in the midst of Draco Malfoy’s company was not where she had expected to find herself when she could feel tears burn at the brim of her eyes.    
  
Hermione was a collected and calm person; she prided herself in being logical, and in making sense where other wizards and witches acted out foolishly. There were indeed times she felt like the sole sensible person in her surroundings, but she wouldn’t claim it to be true, for it would make her the fool she feared to become, if she dared acting out like all those around her continuously had. 

Speaking of acting out, it was greatly upsetting her that Harry, her best friend, had not told her the slightest bit of what was currently going on. He knew very well that she abhorred being left in the dark without knowing what was happening and how to properly handle it. 

She had understood the little Harry had explained to her, of course, and she agreed, no matter her distaste for Malfoy, that the war was meant to be put behind them all. She had helped Harry with most of the wordings in his public statements of fair trials for the Death Eaters and criminals alike. 

People needed to see a change, and the Ministry needed to act better if the wizarding community as a whole was to trust their leaders once more. If people felt safe, they were less likely to act out the way which the followers of Voldemort had acted, and she knew well the logic in practicing forgiveness. That was, on a formal level. Being alone with Malfoy sent chills down her spine, as years of abuse and fear of not just him, but everyone around her, and the need to prove herself better, left her posture rigid and strained, and left her visibly uncomfortable. She wanted to be the better witch, she wanted to be better than Malfoy had been; she understood how hard the war must have been for the young pureblood. She knew people weren’t simply evil, no matter how much they could seem it. She wanted to give Malfoy a chance, seeing he had shown, albeit very few, reasons to believe that he could be reasoned with. 

Besides, Harry was vouching for Malfoy, but Hermione couldn’t help but to think that her friend had once more digged himself into a hole of his own guilt and emotions; she knew how much it would mean to Harry if he could help someone he very nearly killed, and she feared it would cloud his judgement. Some people were simply too damaged to learn to stop damaging those around them. Harry wanting to believe might not be the most reliable source. 

She had no idea what Harry was doing, and she very much disliked not knowing. Of course, she had picked up on the close proximity between the two young men, not to mention the fact that she could tell Harry was protecting and guarding the other, which might as well be needed given how much of a child Ron was currently being about it all. Not only was Ron being impossible with deciding his need to be present and guard his family against Malfoy, but well there he couldn’t even stand the presence, meaning he was merely sulking in his room instead. He could be such a dimwitted-... ugh. Focus. No, Harry was up to something, and he was clearly purposefully putting it on display for everyone to see. 

They had headed outside, and she could feel the wind starting to pull at her hair ever so slightly in a manner which felt like a huge comfort, like someone was softly touching her face. People didn’t usually want to touch her, if one didn’t count Harry, and Ron first after they started dating, and she found touch to be something strange and comfortable; she sighed from the very comfort of it.    
  
She listened, there was nothing else she could figure out she would do. The whole situation clearly needed more observation altogether. She observed the other, looking up at Malfoy, her arms crossed, while she listened to him stumble through the very awkward explanation to why Harry had just decided to separate her and Ron, and well, it made sense.    
  
“I-... see,” she started, sounding more than a little skeptical. She wasn’t skeptical over Harry’s little scheme, she was just as aware as Harry that Ron would stir up quite the fuss about it if he knew; it seemed Harry was acting the distraction. She also noted that Harry clearly agreed with whatever reason Malfoy had to speak with her, as he had come up with his plan to begin with. Furthermore, it did not go unnoticed just how nervous Malfoy was. In all honesty, there was a part of Hermione which immediately, almost subconsciously, expected him to ask for a favour, any sort of favour really.    
  
People rarely talked to her, well more or less never, if there wasn’t something they wanted of her. Of course, it wasn’t something people generally did out of malice, but it had left enough traces for her to almost be convinced that there was something Malfoy wanted, something he needed, which she could help with, which he was nervous and ashamed of asking for. It made sense to her. Hence, she was not the slightest prepared for the words which followed.    
  
What in the name of all great Wizards and Witches was-... Did Malfoy, Draco Malfoy himself-... he was bowing to her. He was apologising to her, telling her words which she knew well were more than true, and knew well it was the very least she deserved. 

Yet, she lived in a world where no matter how much she knew what was right, nobody around her adhered to it, or seemed to understand. People didn’t apologise for their faults, not to her. She couldn’t think of a single time where someone had apologised to her for truly being at fault, rather than out of consideration and friendship. It couldn’t be true. There had to be a reason, maybe Malfoy was simply trying to win favour with Harry, everyone always tried to win favour with Harry, it couldn’t be for her sake.    
  
“Yes, yes in fact, that is the very least you can do-...” she tried, but found her voice shakier than expected. Soon after she realised her cheeks were wet from tears. This was beyond ridiculous! She had faced terrorists and Death Eaters, torture and war, and here she was, crying, silently, but far from gracefully, over something as small as an apology. She shouldn’t-... well she was, she was crying, unable to remain completely silent about it. Worse yet, she was crying in front of-... oh damned it all it didn’t matter, did it? 

She hid her face behind her hands, trying hard to control herself, but to no real avail. 

**Draco Malfoy:**   
Since he had not been looking at her, Draco had not realised that the witch had begun crying, but when he heard her sobs, he looked up to find that she was. For a few seconds, he found himself completely frozen in place. Normally, that is to say, before his life fell together and he became a Death Eater in the service of a megalomaniac madman who thought it a perfect idea to slaughter most of the world, he wouldn’t really care that much about someone crying. Yet, since then, he had been crying a lot. Many desperate nights had been filled with desperately sobbing into his pillow, helpless to all around him and unable to do anything but crying. It was fair to say that he knew what helplessness looked like at this point. 

When he had been that utterly alone and lost, all he had wanted was for someone to touch him. To break the illusion of loneliness and to allow him some comfort with the knowledge that he wasn’t alone. He really wasn’t sure if that was a universal thing, and thus, he hesitated before he spoke up. It wasn’t smooth, in actuality, it was downright embarrassingly clumsy. 

“Would you… maybe… like a hug?” 


End file.
